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Second Edition. Price 25cts. 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SPIRIT 
 
 Robert Elsmere 
 
Xo toe issued in Feb. 189C Price £2^ote. 
 
 HEADACHE 
 
 AN EPITOME FROM 
 Dr. Carl Ernst Bock's 
 
 (Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Leipzig, Germany 
 
 BOOK 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HUMAN BODY 
 
 IN 
 
 SICKNESS. 
 
 Translated and Adapted for the Sanitary conditions of the North American 
 
 Continent under authority from the Author and Publisher 
 
 of the Original by 
 
 F. m. ^. CA2si:iv ? 
 
 FROM THE FOURTEENTH EDITION 
 
 Revised and brought forward so as to include the results of the most recent 
 progress in medical research and science by 
 
 MAX "VOIST ZIMMEI^MANN 
 
 Doctor of Medicine and Practicing Physician, 
 
 WITH XYLOGRAPHS. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 POLYTECHNICAL NEWS COMPANY 
 
 7 Pearl Street, near Battery Park. 
 
When papacy first organized the N. A. Hierarchy 1789, 
 the official statistics furnished, showed a Roman Catho- 
 lic population of 44,500. 
 
 The present Roman Catholic population of the United 
 States (Hoffman's Catholic Directory for 1890) is esti- 
 mated at 8,301,367, which shows an increase in 100 years 
 at the rate of 1:186.5. 
 
 It so happened, that in the year 1790 also the first 
 general census was taken in the United States of North 
 America, showing then a population of 3,929,214. The 
 present population, being estimated at 60,000,000, there 
 has been an increase of the total population in the same 
 100 years at the rate only of 1:15.27. 
 
 Therefore the increase of the Roman Church was due 
 to increase in population in general for only one-tenth 
 of the total, while nine- tenths of her increase were due to 
 the predominent immigration of Roman Catholics and to 
 proselytes from other faith communities joining the 
 church. A calculation based on these statistical facts 
 would also make it appear, that at the same proportion- 
 ate increase of both the nation and the Roman Catholics 
 the next 60 years would give to the Roman Church a 
 majority of the population and of the proportionate vot- 
 ing power, thus rendering it probable, that between 1950 
 and 2000 all branches of our general Government (Con- 
 gress, Judiciary and Executive), would be in the hands of 
 the Roman Catholics and of the Roman Pontifex in con- 
 sequence. 
 
Wlti or tie tree, MMB * 
 Toe cross was cut,— tlie mate of maa— 
 
 To unit all We, tie tree He Hate. 
 prom teatH relieve toe tree, woo can? 
 
 It is eternal Mtore's action, 
 prom which may come its resurrection. 
 
A PROTEST 
 
 DIRECTED TO 
 
 James Cardinal Gibbons 
 
 ^RCIJBISHOP OF BALTIMORE, 
 
 AS THE HEAD OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC HIERARCHY 
 
 IN THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 AND AS THE AUTHOR OF THE RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOK 
 
 44 OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE" 
 
 » i . ^» i i » 
 
 SEVEN LETTERS 
 
 written in the spirit of 
 
 ROBERT ELSMERE. 
 
 (RIGHT '<% 
 
 BY i V!AR 7 IB9Q.V 
 
 V Sbobl U 
 
 MICH. DB GAVAEELLE, P. V. K 
 
 ? 
 
 SECOND REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION. 
 
 NEW YOKE 
 
 POLYTECHNICAL NEWS COMPANY 
 7 Pearl Street, near Battery Park. 
 
 mngtO^' 
 
The Library 
 
 of Congress 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1889, by 
 
 Mich. De Gavarelle, in the Office of the Librarian 
 
 of Congress, at Washington, D. C, under 
 
 No. 36,069 U., on November 27th, 1889. 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 to all those, 
 who consider their intellect 
 as their best possession 
 and 
 
 Freedom of Conscience 
 
 as conditional to their 
 
 ENJOYMENT OP LIFE. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE. Page 1. 
 
 DEDICATION. Page 5. 
 
 Preface to the Second Edition. Page 7. 
 
 FIRST LETTER.— To * whom Cardinal 
 Gibbons directed His Book, "Our Christian 
 Heritage," and to whom not. Page 9. 
 
 SECOND LETTER.— What may be Known 
 and Proven and what not. Page 37. 
 
 THIRD LETTER.— On Miracles. Page 65. 
 
 FOURTH LETTER.— The Real Position 
 of the Roman Catholic Church Towards 
 Agnosticism in Contrast with Cardinal 
 Gibbons' Attempt to Prove the Super- 
 natural. Page 73. 
 
 FIFTH LETTER.— Different Methods of 
 Propagating the Roman Catholic Faith 
 under Different Circumstances. Page 77. 
 
 SIXTH LETTER.— The Roman Catholic 
 Church is a SeriousDanger in Herself to 
 the Institutions of the United States of 
 North America. Page 97 
 
 SEVENTH LETTER.— What Creed the 
 American Citizen Should Select. Page 83. 
 
to tlie Second iDciitioxi 
 
 Not for a passing moment have I attributed the speedy 
 absorption of the first edition of this "Protest" by the 
 public to any virtue of the book. That it expresses the 
 thoughts of many, that many are sympathetic to the posi- 
 tion it takes, these facts explain the ever increasing de- 
 mand for it. "I have read the book, I am pleased with 
 it, it is a move in the right direction" such is the criti- 
 cism met with. And on inquiry as to what specific 
 direction be referred to, answer is made : ei The relaga- 
 ting of creeds to a third order in importance to mankind 
 as against happiness of mankind in present life and as 
 against scientific research and freedom of conscience. 11 
 Such criticism came not from an agnostic, but from a 
 church man, of professional education and of conserva- 
 tive instincts. The author is well aware, that he stands 
 only on a platform, which has been built up by other 
 better men than himself, and that to their line of thought 
 and conclusions, he has added but the one of the super- 
 natural being not only unproven but also unprovable for 
 human intellect. 
 
 To the author this axiom appeared to be the cap-stone 
 to the edifice of agnostic conclusions, and to complete the 
 structure and to accomplish its solidification into a 
 natural organic total. 
 
 And the author has only one sentiment in the pre- 
 
— 8 — 
 
 mises, namely: regret, that not one of greater ability and 
 better opportunities had undertaken a task, which to as- 
 sume enthusiasm for the cause has conduced him. This 
 regret mainly rests on the misgiving, that the cause may 
 be harmed by the insufficiency of the equipment of the 
 author for the task. It is on this account, that I may be 
 permitted to say : 
 
 The contest as between his Eminence and the under- 
 signed is not fought on even terms. I have to rely on 
 my own limited mental resources exclusively. My time 
 for composing these letters *had to be cut away from 
 the time, I have to devote to gaining support for wife and 
 children. If I desire to refer to the intellectual product 
 of others, I have to search for the book in public libraries 
 and make use thereof under difficulties causing loss of 
 convenience in working and of time. I have nobody 
 willing and able to act as my second in the conflict. 
 But his Eminence is surrounded by and has at command 
 all the bcoks, that may be wanted for reference, all the 
 learned co-workers, who may be useful or desirable for 
 careful preparation of manuscript, for prudent discussion 
 and suggestions as to plus or minus of contents. Those of 
 literary propensities will be able to well appreciate the 
 influence on quality of literary work resulting from defi- 
 cient equipment and opportunities. And again his Emi- 
 nence has as an effective forerunner on the road for ap- 
 preciation and publicity the position as the iirst one 
 amongst an entire class of men of learning and influence, 
 while the undersigned hides under a' : nomdoplumc" 
 not because he shuns responsibility, but lest his modest 
 position amongst those learned in philosophy and theo- 
 logy might cast a shadow on what he has to say. 
 
 To say that such consciousness of deficient support has 
 infringed on courage and determination would be con- 
 trary to fact. As Martin Luther did say to Charles V., 
 so do I say to my judges, the people of the North Amer- 
 ican nation. — "Here I stand, I cannot otherwise." 
 
 Mich- De Gavarelle. 
 
FIRST LETTER. 
 
 To whom Cardinal Gibbons directed His 
 
 book, "Our Christian Heritage", 
 
 and to whom not. 
 
 Your Eminence 
 
 Has directed to the North American public 
 in celebration of the one hundredth anniversary 
 of the creation of the North American Roman 
 Catholic Hierarchy an Address for the evident 
 purpose of gathering to the fold of the Roman 
 Catholic Church a part of the North American 
 people, which your Eminence described as 
 follows : 
 
 "The great majority of readers in this 
 hustling age, professing to have no leisure, 
 and certainly evincing no inclination to peruse 
 bulky volumes, no matter how superior their 
 merit may be" 
 
 The predecessors of your Eminence in the 
 Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church have 
 
— 10 — 
 
 shown great assiduity at all times since the 
 foundation of the Roman Church, and where- 
 ever the members of its Hierarchy had not 
 succeeded in combining in themselves the 
 much coveted temporal power or political 
 sovereignty with the spiritual power claimed 
 by them, — in persuading the political rulers of 
 the exclusive rights, which the Roman Catholic 
 Church claimed to hold on humanity in gen- 
 eral and on the sovereigns in special. As long 
 and wherever absolutism held the political 
 power, the Roman Catholic Church used such 
 power as an instrument for its purposes, and 
 the church did use controversy and persuasion 
 only as a palliation to the use of power, or 
 when the power of absolutism failed to uphold 
 the rule of the church. 
 
 Your Eminence is following the practice, as 
 it is hereabove truly stated, in addressing the 
 sovereign people, the ruler of the United States 
 of America, the people itself, thus yielding to 
 political necessity in this case, as the Roman 
 Catholic Church has always made it a practice 
 to do, celebrating high mass and chanting 
 "TeDeum laudamus" with the same fervor to 
 Louis XVI., to the Republic, to Napoleon I., 
 to Charles X., to Louis Philip, Napoleon III., 
 to President Thiers and to his successors. 
 
 Every citizen, whom your Eminence will thus 
 
— 11 — 
 
 gather to the folds of the Homan Catholic" 
 Church, will represent an increase of power for 
 the church itself and for its Hierarchy in the 
 United States. And be it admitted, that, if the 
 expansion of the Roman Catholic Church in 
 the United States will continue at the same 
 rate, as it has during the past century, the 
 majority of the sovereign people of the United 
 States of North America will be found, 
 wielding its political power under Roman rule, 
 disfranchising the minority in the same way 
 and manner, as the Jews were disfranchised 
 during all of the so-called Christian aera, as 
 the Moors and Indians were disfranchised 
 under Spanish rule, as the Protestants were 
 disfranchised, until with sword in hand they 
 obtained their liberty of conscience, or until 
 they fled from the home of their ancestors to 
 the then inhospitable shores of this continent. 
 The sovereign people on this continent in re- 
 sisting aggression on the part of the Roman 
 Catholic Church and Hierarchy is not as 
 favorably situated, as other sovereigns were or 
 are in their defence against such aggression. 
 The Catholic dukes and kings of Catholic 
 Bavaria have claimed and do now claim the 
 hereditary prerogative of granting or with- 
 holding their placet within their realm not 
 only as to the personality of the Hierarchy 
 
— 12 - 
 
 but also on the public teaching or non-teach- 
 ing of newly created dogmas of the church; 
 and at the present moment the present king 
 of Bavaria refuses, supported therein by the 
 highest officials of his kingdom, to abandon 
 his prerogative to refuse his placet to the 
 official promulgation within his kingdom of 
 the newly created dogm& of the infallibility of 
 the Roman Pontifex when speaking ex 
 cathedra. 
 
 Thus the political power being represented 
 by a hereditary individuality possesses a rep- 
 resentative voice, by which a protest may 
 be expressed against the assumption of un- 
 due influences on civil, temporal, political 
 matters by the Roman church, but the North 
 American people possesses no such authorized 
 representative voice, and on the very day, 
 that your Eminence's desire will be fulfilled 
 in this bustling age, and all those who pro- 
 fess to Jiave no leisure for study, will have 
 entered the folds of the church, the church's 
 political power will be supreme,and the Roman 
 Pontifex may ex cathedra hurl an anathema, as 
 he has done so often heretofore, against the 
 liberty of human conscience to believe or not 
 to believe, to search for facts and truth and 
 not to submit to the authority of ortho- 
 dox teachings. And such freedom of con- 
 
— 13 — 
 
 science will practically exist no longer on this 
 continent, and tlie civil authority of the 
 United States will be the executioner of the 
 dictates from Rome, the same as Prancon and 
 Spanish sovereigns have been. 
 
 From the standpoint of your Eminence this 
 would be a boon to the American people, but 
 from the standpoint of the reverently un- 
 dersigned its prevention would be worth the 
 repetition of all the sorrow and suffering of the 
 martyrs of science and of libertj^ of conscience, 
 whom the Roman Church has persecuted, and 
 be worth all the blood, which the martyrs 
 for Christianity have shed in resisting to the 
 atrocious demands of tyranny then covered 
 with the robe of paganism, as your Eminence 
 now wears the robe colored after the blood 
 of these martyrs of their own liberty of con- 
 science. 
 
 And this conviction of a high value of the 
 liberty of conscience, doubt and research is 
 shared in by many, and in special by the Pro- 
 testant denominations still retaining faith in 
 at least the divine mission of Jesus Christ, 
 notwithstanding your Eminence's eminently 
 prudent captatio benevolentiae in calling to 
 your Eminence's side, while the battle lasts, 
 able and zealous advocates in Protestant 
 writers (p. 1), in not despising or rejecting 
 
— 14 — 
 
 their support— to gladly hold out to them the 
 right hand of fellowship, so long as they 
 
 SIDE WITH YOUR EMINENCE IN STRIKING THE 
 
 common foe, declaring it as pleasant to be 
 
 ABLE TO STAND SOMETIMES ON THE SAME PLAT- 
 FORM WITH THE CHURCH' S OLD ANTAGONISTS. 
 
 (Your Eminence on p. 1.) 
 
 The battle once won,, the Roman Church's 
 ingratitude must by necessity become the ad- 
 miration of contemporaneous humanity, and 
 the ' 'so long as ' ' the present outlay for formal 
 fair play will then be to the Roman Church the 
 fullest justification in the judgment of the thus 
 entangled humanity. 
 
 Tlxe^ Common Foe. 
 
 " The great majority of readers in this 
 bustling age profess to have no leisure, and 
 certainly evince no inclination to peruse bulky 
 volumes, no matter how superior their merit 
 may be." 
 
 It is chiefly to this busy restless class that 
 the writer addresses himself and he craves 
 their earnest attention. — {p. V.). 
 
 Thus your Eminence specifically stated, to 
 whom your address on our christian heritage 
 is directed, and when your Eminence speaks 
 of the common foe, it should in correct conclu- 
 sion be understood that this busy restless class, 
 
— 15 — 
 
 this large majority of the American people, 
 be indeed the common foe, whom your Emi- 
 nence proposes to battle with. And this con- 
 clusion claims so much more strength of logic, 
 as immediately after speaking of the common 
 foe, your Eminence declares (p. 2) 
 
 Nor were these pages written in the fond 
 hope of influencing professional free think- 
 ers, agnostics and other avowed enemies of 
 Christianity, who will not learn, lest their 
 knowledge might compel them to do well, who 
 trade in blasphemy, who glory in their nfi- 
 delity, and who earn for themselves a cheap 
 reputation by coarsely caricaturing every 
 doctrine and tradition, that Christians hold 
 dear. Every scoffer at religion is the Ther- 
 sites of the Christian camp. Such characters 
 are found in every age; and they were aptly 
 described over eighteen centuries ago by the 
 Apostle as " ungodly men denying the only 
 Sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 blaspheming tohatever things they know not; 
 and what things soever they naturally know, 
 like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted; 
 feasting together without fear, clouds with- 
 out water, which are carried about by the 
 winds, autumnal leaves without fruit, raging 
 waves of the sea, foaming out their own con- 
 fusion, wandering stars, to whom the storm 
 
— 16 — 
 
 of darkness is reserved forever ." 
 
 These men profess to have discovered in the 
 revealed Scriptures, contradictions and ab- 
 surdities and legislative enactments un- 
 worthy of the wisdom and justice of the Di- 
 vine Lawgiver. They judge everything from 
 their own narrow standpoint without regard 
 to the circumstances of time and place in 
 which the Scriptures mere written. They will 
 offer more objections to Christianity in an 
 hour titan could be reasonably answered in 
 a month. While avowing their ignorance 
 of many of the physical laws, that govern the 
 universe and that regulate even their own 
 bodies, which they see and feel, they will in- 
 sist on knowing everything regarding the in- 
 comprehensible Deity and his attributes. In 
 a word, they will admit mysteries in the 
 material world that surrounds them; but 
 mysteries in the supernatural world, they 
 will not accept. They will deny any revealed 
 truth, that does not fall within the range of 
 human experience and that is not in accord- 
 ance with the discovered laws of nature. But 
 to reject a dogma on such grounds cannot be 
 approved by philosophy or sound sense. 
 
 In the foregoing quotation from your 
 Eminence's book, as in most others thereof a 
 division may be made into two parts of an 
 
— 17 — 
 
 essentially different character, the one being- 
 quotation or repetition from some ecclesiasti- 
 cal author originally applied to pagans or 
 heretics and the other being your Eminence' & 
 own expressions. It is to the part last men- 
 tioned, that the reverently undersigned pro- 
 poses to first direct his or his reader 1 s attention. 
 
 The main idea expressed in the above quoted 
 part of your Eminence's book is evidently 
 that the book be not written for or directed 
 to "professional free-thinkers and Agnos- 
 tics" . 
 
 But the undersigned assuming it to be im- 
 possible, that your Eminence really intended 
 to call the majority of the American people^ 
 the common foe of the Eoman Catholic and 
 Protestant clergy, but unable to find any 
 other foe explained or described in your Em- 
 inence's book, may also assume, that in your 
 Eminence's mind the foe takes shape in the 
 busy, restless class, the same being considered 
 as largely influenced and controled by peo- 
 fessional free-thinkers and agnostics, and 
 that your Eminence intends not to deal with 
 the leaders, but to direct vour Eminence's at- 
 tention exclusively to the masses following 
 them. 
 
 And in this assumption the writer is up- 
 held by the following statement (on page 4)> 
 in your Eminence's address. 
 
— 18 — 
 
 This little volume is affectionately ad- 
 dressed to a large, and I fear, an increasing 
 class of persons, loho through association, 
 the absence of Christian training, a distorted 
 education and pernicious reading have not 
 only become estranged from the specific teach- 
 ings of the Gospel, but tchose moral and re- 
 ligious nature has received such a shock, that 
 they have only a vague and undefined faith 
 even in the truths of natural religion under- 
 lying Christianity. 
 
 These deserve more pity than blame, they 
 have never shared in the Christian heritage 
 of their fathers, or they were robbed of it, 
 before they had the moral and intellectual 
 vigor to resist the invader, or they quietly sur- 
 rendered their inheritance before they could 
 appreciate its inestimable value. They do 
 not boast of their spiritual darkness and 
 moral obliquity. They make no parade of 
 their irreligion. They feel unhappy in their 
 deprivation. 
 
 Some of them not questioning our sin- 
 cerity, nor quite denying the objective truth 
 of our Christian profession, contemplate 
 us with secret envy. But as they fancy, 
 that the atmosphere of faith would be op- 
 pressive to them, because it involves sacrifices 
 hard to Jlesfi and blood, they make no efforts 
 to acquire it. Their disease is partly mental 
 doubt but still more moral cowardice. 
 
— 19 — 
 
 Others of them honestly imagine that, in 
 accepting and prof essing the truths of Chris- 
 tianity, we are in a state of happy delusion, 
 and they pity us. 
 
 There are others, I think, who as honestly 
 persuade themselves, that we do not believe 
 what we preach; and they very naturally de- 
 spise us. 
 
 The men, of whom I speak, have but a dim 
 and hazy view of the first principles of re- 
 ligion. 
 
 To lead them back to the Christian fold by 
 starting with an appeal to the divine claims 
 of Christ, to the value of the soul, the voice of 
 conscience, the importance of salvation, 
 the glory of heaven or the sufferings of the 
 reprobate,is to assume as granted facts, which 
 they do not accept. It is like commencing the 
 house at the roof instead of at the founda- 
 tion. As grace is founded on nature, so the 
 knowledge of supernatural religion must rest 
 on natural religion. We waste our time in 
 trying to build up the edifice of faith in men 
 in whose souls the foundations of natural 
 truth have been undermined. 
 
 What is to be gained in exhorting men to 
 worship the Trinity, until the misgivings they 
 have about the existence of a personal God are 
 removed? 
 
 What will it profit us to admonish them to 
 submit to the inscrutable decrees of Provi- 
 
— 20 — 
 
 deuce, if they do not admit a superintending 
 Providence, but look upon all events, that 
 happen, as the result of physical laws or of 
 blind, chance? 
 
 There is little to be gained in quoting Scrip- 
 ture to men who imagine, that many facts of 
 Scripture are controverted by the deductions 
 of science. 
 
 In vain do we strive4o persuade men to be 
 solicitous about the salvation of their souls, so 
 long as they are seduced into the belief, that 
 they have no soul or spiritual being, and 
 maintain, that their mental conceptions are 
 mere modifications of the brain. 
 
 Before we can persuade them to listen with 
 docility to the voice of conscience, we must 
 -first convince them, that conscience is the 
 voice of God, and not, as they imagine, the 
 prompting of a timid nature, or the outcome 
 of education. 
 
 Before toe can succeed in urging men to 
 keep the Commandments, the distinction be- 
 tween virtue and vice, which is well-nigh ob- 
 literated from their hearts, must be made 
 clearly manifest. 
 
 And we are preaching to deaf ears in re- 
 buking sin and in exhorting men to resist 
 their evil inclinations, till we get them to ad- 
 mit, that man enjoys moral freedom, and dis- 
 abuse them of the false notion, that sensual 
 desires were given us to be gratified, and that 
 it is neither expedient nor possible to resist 
 
— 21 — 
 
 what a contemporary writer calls "the divine 
 rights of passion" 1 
 
 In a word, it is time thrown away to ex- 
 patiateon the happiness of eternal life before 
 hearers, who do not believe in immortality, but 
 who regard death as the term of man 9 s exist- 
 ence. 
 
 The class of men of whom I am writing, 
 will bluntly say to us : We are longing for 
 light, but toe hesitate to become Christians, 
 not so much because your religion claims to 
 be super natural, as because we suspect it to be 
 irrational. We reject your authority as 
 teachers; we reject Christian revelation ; we 
 take nothing for granted ; we appeal to the 
 court of reason and historical evidence. Let 
 us try to meet them on their own ground, and 
 accept the appeal. 
 
 Your Eminence's here above quoted de- 
 scription of the masses standing outside of all 
 orthodox christian creeds could not well be ex- 
 pected to be other than just such as it is,name- 
 ly: one written under the assumption, that 
 ■all, what is inside of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, be good, and all, what be outside of it, 
 be bad. 
 
 If in the description as thus made by your 
 Eminence, the words Buddhism be substituted 
 
 l Bobert Ulsmere. 
 
— 22 — 
 
 for Christianity, and Buddhist, for Chris- 
 tian, and some allusions to specific christian 
 dogmas by allusions to' Buddhist dogmas, it 
 would read just as well in defense of Buddh- 
 ism as it does of Christianity. Nevertheless 
 many of its assertions have the value only of 
 assumptions in both cases. 
 
 To controvert at this occasion with your 
 Eminence on the interpretation given (by in- 
 timation only though) of what in Robert 
 Elsmere's mind is expressed as "the -divine 
 right of passion" would lead too far. But 
 this may be said, that to take passion from 
 human nature is to take virtue away with it. 
 The method applied on Eunuchs and on 
 Chanters to Pontifical Masses in the Sixtine 
 Chapel for subduing passions, or the isola- 
 tion of sexes in convents have not been fruit- 
 ful contributions to the raising of the stand- 
 ard of humanity but on the contrary have 
 been a source of scandal to a larger extent 
 than all or any institutions connected with 
 religious practices. 
 
 As to the "longing" of many "for light" 
 it rarely guides to the Roman Church. 
 
 It is indeed one of the tenacious illusions 
 with the adherents to orthodox creeds, that all 
 those standing outside do not feel happy. 
 This is indeed not so. Under equal disposi- 
 
— 23 — 
 
 tions and surroundings agnostics are much 
 more at ease (happy) in their true inward 
 mind than all those as yet waging battle with 
 their doubts in their own mind, and these bat- 
 tles will occur in the most stubborn cf chris- 
 tian believers, as the confessions of many indi- 
 cate. 
 
 Leaving out the controversy with heretics 
 (Protestants, etc.) for the present (until later 
 on, in case any convert to Christianity might 
 incline that way) your Eminence creates ap- 
 pearance of meeting those, who bluntly say: 
 
 We are longing for light, but we hesitate 
 to become Christians, not so much because 
 your religion claims to be supernatural, as 
 because we suspect it to be irrational. We 
 reject your authority as teachers; we reject 
 Christian revelation; we take nothing for 
 granted; we appeal to the court of reason 
 and historical evidence. 
 
 And your Eminence makes the proposal: 
 
 Let us try to meet them on their own 
 ground, and accept the appeal. 
 
 But your Eminence is bound by many vows 
 under oath to not meet them on their own 
 ground,because,whenever you enter the contest, 
 you are under solemn promise, vow and oath to 
 never become convinced of any theorem pecul- 
 iarly theirs, or of any fact disproving your 
 creed, and to reject all what be in conflict 
 
~ 24 — 
 
 with the Roman Catholic creed. And should I 
 or any other agnostic convince your intellect 
 of any such theorem or fact, your Eminence 
 would go down on your Eminence's knees and 
 exhort the Unknown to turn your Eminence's 
 mind and to deliver it of the wickedness of 
 ♦considering intellect superior to the grace of 
 believing in one creed. only, namely in that of 
 the Roman Catholic Churche 
 
 Though your Eminence enters the arena 
 with the assertion of meeting agnostics on 
 their own ground, your Eminence in reality 
 cannot and will not do this, but will assume 
 to be inconvinceable at all times, and that even 
 to be convinced would be falling into error. 
 Your Eminence does in one place not recog- 
 nize professional (learned in their convictions) 
 agnostics as those to be addressed and in the 
 other (as above quoted) they are represented 
 as those, whom your Eminence proposes to 
 meet on their own ground. As shown, the 
 former assertion is true and the latter asser- 
 tion is false in more than one sense. 
 
 Thus your Eminence has directed the ad- 
 dress to the intellectually untrained or insuf- 
 ficiently equipped, and thus your Eminence 
 has prepared thoroughly for pushing aside 
 and ignoring any controversing expression, 
 which might emanate from a professional 
 free thinker or agnostic. 
 
25 — 
 
 I have most carefully examined the descrip- 
 tion, as your Eminence makes it of profes- 
 sional free thinkers, agnostics m and other 
 avowed enemies of Christianity, whom your 
 Eminence excludes from all consideration. 
 But finding, that none of the essential qualifi- 
 cations made by your Eminence could possi- 
 bly be applied to myself, and although not 
 claiming to belong to the ignorant classes, as 
 your Eminence describes them, I sustain a 
 slight hope, that your Eminence may permit 
 these open letters to be read and considered 
 aside of your Eminence's address by those in 
 search of truth. To ignore these letters, to answer 
 them with incriminations of the author's inten- 
 tions, the author's faculties, the author's learn- 
 ing, the author's character or the author's 
 life, would in nowise settle the questions at 
 issue, but would be in pursuance only of the 
 practice of the Roman Church and of the 
 method already followed by it so often when 
 changing the issue from a question of fact and 
 truth to one of personal incrimination. 
 
 Before stating why I do not belong to the class 
 described by your Eminence as the "profession- 
 al free thinkers, agnostics and other avowed 
 enemies of Christianity, for whom your Emi- 
 nence's pages were not written, permit me to 
 make the solemn declaration, that I do not 
 
— 26 — 
 
 claim to be one only of a kind in existence, 
 but that it is in my sure knowledge as the 
 result of personal observation and intercourse 
 on two continents for the forty years last past, 
 that the description, as your Eminence gives 
 it of enemies of Christianity,as quoted above, 
 may find its objects amongst the ignorant 
 masses, born and raised, where the Roman 
 Catholic Church held 'them in its bondage, 
 and where the endeavor to throw off its bond- 
 age is steeped in hatred against the suppres- 
 sion of liberty of conscience. But amongst 
 those nations, who bestow a liberal education 
 on their rising generations, and who are 
 not sufferers from church compulsion, in- 
 imity to Christianity is not a necessary com- 
 plement to the search for truth, to free 
 thinking and to the confession not to know 
 (agnostics) many things, which your Em- 
 inence claims to know. And after stating, 
 that I am one only amongst many hundred 
 thousands, I may add, that I am only one 
 amongst them standing low in ability and 
 learning and virtue when compared with their 
 larger number. I now may be permitted to 
 show, that your Eminence's description of 
 those your Eminence proposes to meet on 
 their own ground at one place, and refuses to 
 have anything to do with at another place, nei- 
 
— 27 — 
 
 ther describes them nor me, and that I there- 
 fore may raise my voice in defence of humanity 
 at large, American citizens in special, ant 
 against Roman encroachment on liberty of 
 conscience. 
 
 If amongst free thinkers there be a few, who 
 make free thought their profession,w7io will not 
 learn, lest their knowledge might compel them 
 to do well, who trade in blasphemy, (though 
 your Eminence would call blasphemy every dis- 
 cussion regarding the Supreme Being not en- 
 tered upon for the absolute and exclusive pur- 
 pose of proving its existence)wfo> glory in their 
 infidelity and who earn for themselves a cheap 
 reputation by coarsely caricaturing every 
 doctrine and tradition, that Christians hold 
 dear — is this a characteristic description of 
 free thinkers and agnostics as a class ? Your 
 Eminence's words are of a kind with the often 
 repeated but eternally false assertion, that 
 enthusiasm for truth be begotten in vice. If 
 your Eminence's description might be called 
 correct and then certainly in part only, and 
 some of the public lecturers on free thought be 
 made to stand as examples of the total class of 
 free thinkers, then there is the same distinc- 
 tion between them and all the other free 
 thinkers, as it is between the Roman Catholic 
 Hierarchy and clergy on the one hand and the 
 Roman Catholic people on the other. 
 
— 28 — 
 
 With both, the free thought or agnostic lec- 
 turer and the Roman clergyman, their lecturing 
 is a matter of finance. Both are apt to overdo 
 their task and to betray in their behavior and 
 words so much of vulgarity as be inherent to 
 tt&eir individual nature. Would your Emi- 
 nence consider the Roman Catholic clergy 
 as a class to be reprehensible on account of 
 the black sheep amongst them ? 
 
 But even then the comparison turns largely 
 in favor of free thought. The Roman Catholic 
 Church has the benefit of a millennium of ex- 
 perience in the education of her clergy. She 
 commands millions over millions of dollars all 
 Invested in educational institutes for educating 
 and training her priests for their vocation. 
 
 And wonderful results has the Roman 
 Church achieved in this direction. Be it ad- 
 mitted, that of all classes of men with well 
 trained intellects, none without exception can 
 be compared as a class with the followers of 
 Ignatius of Loyola. Their nine years' noviti- 
 ate, the curbing of their will under habitual 
 obedience makes of them material for an intel- 
 lectual contest, as there is none superior and 
 probably none equal in existence. What poor 
 testimony for the cause itself, if with such ma- 
 terial the results of expansion during the last 
 centuries of critical research have been oi so 
 •extremely minimal dimensions. 
 
— 29 — 
 
 And then for Agnostics! ! Is there man liv- 
 ing, who was educated and trained as an ex- 
 pounder of Agnosticism? As yet the very few 
 public expounders of this new religion on this 
 continent follow this profession as a matter 
 of individual ambition as well as of money 
 making in sporadic crudely disposed perora- 
 tions, with a self appointed enunciator, who 
 as yet stands totally isolated from the com- 
 munitv of those, to whom their convictions are 
 a matter of conscience and enthusiasm, and 
 who at this moment gather on common ground 
 for working in common. If our results are 
 small and poor, our history is short and our 
 means are scanty. 
 
 When I began writing the present letters,. 
 I sincerely hoped (on account of the im- 
 portance of the subject matter treated, on 
 account of the class of men, whom I hope to 
 reach with these letters, and lastly but not 
 leastly on account of your Eminence' s dignified 
 position and of my own nature) to not be car- 
 ried by the qualities of your Eminence's utter- 
 ances into what might appear as a neglect of 
 courtesy, even when stating facts to the full- 
 ness of their value. But would it not be a 
 frustration of my purpose, were I to omit to 
 state the fact, in case your Eminence made a 
 statement, of which it is self-evident, that your 
 
— 30 — 
 
 Eminence must have known the inaccuracy and 
 even the want of veracity ? 
 
 Can it be otherwise than known to your 
 Eminence, that there are living at the present 
 age on this and other continents, a distinct 
 class of scientists, the intellectual labors of 
 whom draw their entire vitality from their en- 
 thusiasm for knowledge and truth, and the life 
 of whom is in no wise inferior as to doing well 
 to that of the plurality of the Catholic clergy, 
 and the knowledge of whom, though it may 
 have conducted them to agnosticism, does so 
 much more compel them to do well, as such 
 compulsion does not come from exterior au- 
 thority, but from their own convictions, and 
 so much more so, as it is part of their convic- 
 tion, that no cause will remain without an 
 effect, and in consequence, that they cannot 
 efface some of the effects of their own acts, by 
 simply regretting, proposing to do better in 
 the future, and by confessing to one of the 
 priests of the Roman Church. Can it be other- 
 wise than known to your Eminence, that these 
 men are no enemies of Christianity, but that 
 they have and confess admiration for what is 
 true and noble in Christianity and for what 
 christian teaching and christian charity and 
 influences have accomplished and do accom- 
 plish in educating humanity and in compass- 
 ing its passions ? 
 
 
— 31 — 
 
 Is it possible, that your Eminence should 
 ignore the fact that free thinkers do justice to 
 Christianity by freely confessing, that in the 
 history of mankind it filled its place as an 
 educator of humanity, that in its early and 
 pure stages it was fighting for freedom of 
 conscience against paganism as later on its pro- 
 testant branch fought against its Roman 
 branch for the same sublime cause, and as ag- 
 nosticism is now fighting against both. 
 
 Is it possible, that your Eminence should 
 ignore, that creed and religion are two abso- 
 lutely different things, that doubting, investi- 
 gating, research for truth may well go together 
 with religion, and that they in no wise involve 
 scoffing at religion. 
 
 It is true that it is a well established custom 
 with the Roman Church, her Clergy and fol- 
 lowers to confuse the two entirely distinct ob- 
 jects : faith and religion. But though the 
 Roman Church has ever held, that not to con- 
 fess to her creed, be equivalent to having no 
 religion, and though the Roman Catholic 
 masses (laymen) do but rarely possess even 
 the faculty to make distinction between the 
 two, such a position cannot reasonably be 
 maintained. Essentially creed and religion have 
 naught in common. The zealot or fanatic 
 may be at fever heat, as far as creed be con- 
 
— 32 — 
 
 cerned, but of religion in the true and better 
 sense of the word there is but rarely an in- 
 gredient in the fanatic's character. To find 
 relief from suffering, oppression (mental or 
 physical) adherent to human nature in look- 
 ing for support to an all powerful and all 
 charitable divinity, such as the individual un- 
 derstands it, or assumes it, or believes in it. 
 and in consequence to relate natural things to 
 such divinity, and to shape individual conduct 
 by so relating the natural with the supernat- 
 ural, — this is religion, to which creeds are as 
 garments to the wearer. 
 
 It must therefore be admitted, that the Ro- 
 man Church has certainly no monopoly on 
 "religion " as such, which is rather a matter 
 of sentiment than of reason, and in which even 
 an agnostic may find relief in human weak- 
 ness and helplessness, as a matter of senti- 
 ment, notwithstanding he absolutely denies 
 that human observation and knowledge can 
 grasp the supernatural and notwithstanding 
 he holds, that so far all what has been claimed 
 as revelation is both unproven and unprovable. 
 
 Can it be otherwise than be known to your 
 Eminence, that the cosmopolitan republic of 
 scientists and enthusiasts for truth and knowl- 
 edge does not as a class trade in blasphemy , 
 does not coarsely caricature every doctrine 
 
— 33 — 
 
 and tradition, that Christians old dear„ 
 (Huxley, Tyndall, and a hundred thousand 
 others.)* 
 
 Can it be otherwise than be known to your 
 Eminence, that men, such as truly stated, that 
 they were found in every age, must by the very 
 earnestness of their nature, by the very enthu- 
 siasm of their convictions, (though they may 
 glory in their own consciousness over their 
 emancipation from intellectual bondage), 
 by the very nature of their tendencies 
 tender the charity of tolerance to those 
 living under orthodox authority, that they can, 
 not glory in what your Eminence calls infidel- 
 ity on their part,but what in reality should be 
 called on the part of orthodox believers the 
 intellectual bondage, in which the majority of 
 humanity is held as yet. And must it not be- 
 
 *Rev. Dr. Emory J. Haynes of the Boston Tremont 
 Temple asserts: ' * We have raised a generation of infidels 
 on the hill-sides of New England. They are the worst 
 heathen that I find in Boston. This cold agnosticism 
 bred in New England is the most indigestible thing that 
 we have to do with. The saddest thing in New England 
 to-day is the old country churches faUing in, and the 
 people abandoning all forms of religion.' ' To which the 
 Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon adds: "What Dr. Haynes says is 
 true. " And the Boston Watchman says : " The recogni- 
 tion of both the Boston pastors above-named is worthy 
 of especial notice." — From the JV. Y. Evening Post* 
 December 7th, 1889. 
 
— 34 
 
 known of necessity to your Eminence, that ra- 
 tional criticism of the Scriptures is not one of 
 the essential distinctions as between the Ro- 
 man Catholic church and orthodox Protestant- 
 ism on the one side and Agnosticism on the 
 other. 
 
 And is it otherwise possible, than that your 
 Eminence should know, that it be not true 
 what your Eminence states, namely that they 
 (the agnostics) will insist on knowing every- 
 tiling regarding the incomprehensible Deity 
 and His attributes. 
 
 Your Eminence does know, that it is the 
 very characteristic confession, on which agnos- 
 ticism rests, of knowing nothing about an in- 
 comprehensible Deity and His attributes, while 
 the Roman church teaches on the church's 
 own authority to every man, woman and child 
 willing to listen all about the incomprehensi- 
 ble Deity and His attributes. 
 
 If your Eminence claims, that, because ag- 
 nostics admit mysteries in the material world, 
 they must accept as true mysteries in the 
 supernatural world, there seems indeed no 
 logical connection between cause and effect, 
 and if your Eminence claims, that their reject- 
 ing of dogmas of the Roman church cannot be 
 approved by philosophy or sound sense, then 
 this is, as far as philosophy is concerned, not 
 
— 35 — 
 
 quite correct, because, if your Eminence's phi- 
 losophy does not, theirs does,and as far as sound 
 sense be concerned, agnostics evidently rely in 
 all their conclusions on repeatable, testable ob- 
 servations made by sound human senses, be- 
 waring with utmost assiduity against illusions 
 and hallucinations, of both of which they be- 
 lieve a considerable admixture to be contained 
 in what the Roman Catholic Church considers 
 as revelations. 
 
 Those only ignorant of the facts, as they 
 exist, can be impressed by your Eminence's 
 statements, such as hereabove printed. With 
 the educated part of humanity they can to the 
 best create a suspicion only against teachings 
 and practices, the pre-eminent representative 
 of which must recur to such means of misrep- 
 resentation in order to hold his own. 
 
 That your Eminence has specifically de- 
 clared (page 4, etc.) to have written for those 
 who unaware of causes or reasons have left or 
 are withheld from the fold of the church, is in- 
 deed no justification for misrepresentations as 
 to the character and qualities of their assumed 
 leaders, who with full consciousness and by 
 their own free intellectual selection stand out- 
 side of the realm of the Roman Church and 
 of orthodoxism in general. 
 
SECOND LETTER. 
 
 What mat be Known and Proven 
 and What Not 
 
 Tour Eminence 
 
 Has collected with great learnedness all 
 such evidence, as will make the existence of 
 a self conscious eternal Supreme Being and 
 Creator of the Universe appear as highly pro- 
 bable, and far be it from the undersigned to 
 deny such existence. But your Eminence 
 thereby produces the impression, as if your 
 Eminence considered facts and quotations as 
 stated as sufficient rational proofs of such 
 existence, thus claiming a faculty, which your 
 Eminence, a human being, does not possess, 
 namely, the faculty of rendering proof, using 
 natural faculties therefore, for a supernatural 
 
 theorem. 
 
 I specifically protest against being misinter- 
 preted to the effect, as if I undertook to deny 
 what your Eminence claims to have proven. 
 

 — 38 — 
 
 Were I to deny what to prove or to disprove 
 is beyond human faculty, I should commit 
 the same error or produce the same erronous 
 impression, as your Eminence's book does, 
 namely of proving what is unprovable. The 
 following exposition will more specifically 
 define the position thus taken. 
 
 If it be within human faculty to observe by 
 the use of human senses, to ascertain facts by 
 methodically repeating and testing observa- 
 tions and to thus establish elementary facts, 
 and to therefrom form logical conclusions and 
 to subject these conclusions and results to 
 critical test and to systematize a series of facts 
 into a science, if all this be within human 
 faculties, than we may accept the following 
 facts as having been established. 
 
 1. Man is a part of nature and is subject in 
 special to all the laws, which govern nature 
 in general. 
 
 2. Therefore what is true for all natural 
 things at large is true for man also in special. 
 
 3. There is in nature no effect, but where 
 there be a natural cause conditional to such 
 effect. 
 
 4. All effects in nature are the results of 
 causes consisting in a change in their mutual 
 relations or in relation to space at large of 
 substances either ponderable or imponder- 
 
— 39 — 
 
 able, although, what appears as yet as such a 
 distinct substance may be a modified quality 
 of the same substance, and the cause then be 
 a mutual modification of specific states of the 
 same substance. 
 
 5. Human thought is an effect of a natural 
 cause, as all other effects in nature are. 
 
 All what is perceptible by human senses 
 is subject to methodical critical observation 
 under the same given conditions and is part of 
 natur e,&n& is thus subject to being ascertained 
 by human investigation. And what is not 
 perceptible to human senses and is not subject 
 to methodical critical observation under re- 
 peated given conditions and what therefore is 
 not part of nature is called supernatural. 
 
 In consequence the dividing line, between 
 natural and supernatural theorems, is a well 
 defined one. Natural theorems can be 
 proven to the satisfaction of a large overwhelm- 
 | ing majority of those having stored within 
 I them what mainly constitutes human know- 
 ledge concerning the subject matter under con- 
 1 sideration, such proofs resulting from the 
 observation by our senses of natural facts and 
 from methodical conclusion based thereon. 
 And such proof can be repeated with the ob- 
 tainable conditions therefor methodically pre- 
 pared. 
 
— 40 — 
 
 Supernatural theorems can not be proven 
 by actual repeatable observation, but they 
 must be accepted if at all, on the basis of his- 
 torical events, claimed to be true and to be 
 correctly represented, and on the authority of 
 records concerning such events as prepared by 
 men not as yet gifted with the modern capabil- 
 ity of methodical observation and investiga- 
 tion and inclined with'the balance of humanity 
 of their time, to attribute to the supernatural 
 all, they as yet did not understand to be part 
 and parcel of the activity of observable 
 natural things and forces. 
 
 A difference further lies in the fact, that 
 the knowledge of natural facts does not claim 
 anything but what can be ascertained to the 
 satisfaction of human observation, while it is 
 claimed in favor of the supernatural, that con- 
 cerning it we have, as an act of voluntary sub- 
 mission of our intellect, to accept what the in- 
 tellect cannot understand, and that the capabil- 
 ity of such submission be a gift (grace with 
 catholics, etc.,) from divinity, which divinity 
 is accepted to be in nature and to fill space 
 and to possess the faculty to become at times 
 observable to our senses or of which as the 
 thought (logical expression of thought) the 
 universe is the body.* 
 
 *Part of the present exposition was written by tn© 
 
 I 
 
— 41 — 
 
 It is thus clear, that the difference between 
 natural and supernatural theorems consists 
 mainly in the possibility on the one hand of 
 ascertaining/ac^ with regard to natural sub- 
 ject matter, while with regard to supernatural 
 theorems on the other hand we possess no 
 such possibility but the liberty for assuming 
 only. 
 
 One of the main supernatural questions 
 we all feel highly interested in, is that, as to 
 whether on the total cessation of organic ac- 
 tivity in our body and while that body is re- 
 dissolving into the chemical elements and com- 
 pounds of which its organic structure was 
 built up, and when the totality called our indi- 
 viduality and personality is either totally fall- 
 ing apart, or if kept together by artificial means, 
 no longer partakes as such in the movement 
 and changes of substances as pertaining to 
 the life of the body, whether then permanently 
 or temporarily, separate from said dead body 
 or from the natural elements, which constitute 
 it, another different or separate individuality, 
 not being subject to methodical observation 
 and not subject to the law, that two different 
 
 same author in connection with some literary work con- 
 nected with an American edition of the celebrated book 
 on the human body in sickness (Pathology) by Dr. C. E. 
 Bock. 
 
— 42 — 
 
 and separate substances cannot fill the same 
 space, and not subject to the law of gravity, 
 does continue to exist. 
 
 The science treating on natural subjects con- 
 fesses, that it does not be within its possibil- 
 ities, to either affirmatively or negatively an- 
 swer this question (agnosco). That in conse- 
 quence it has no opinion in the premises, and 
 that indeed the question is no part of the sci- 
 ence of natural things, but that the science 
 about supernatural questions, theology name- 
 ly, has been striving since the earliest times in 
 the history of mankind, to settle thisquestion 
 with the result, that as a matter of teaching 
 on supernatural subjects the plurality of man- 
 kind does believe such individuality to con- 
 tinue in existence. 
 
 Another main point at issue between theol- 
 ogians (claiming to know) on the one hand 
 and agnostics (claiming not to know) on the 
 other hand, is expressed in the question, as 
 to whether natural evolution (Darwinism) does 
 sufficiently (rationally) account for life and 
 consciousness, or whether the event of the 
 first step to evolution does not remain unac- 
 counted for, and whether this unexplained 
 first fact in serial evolution does not consti- 
 tute the bridge between naturalism and super- 
 naturalism, and the selection lies in this case 
 
— 43 — 
 
 between the proud claim of authority and the- 
 modest confession of ignorance.* 
 
 Each human individual develops the faculty" 
 to make distinction between its own individ- 
 uality and the totality of surrounding nature 
 through its own sensual perception, such per- 
 ception being limited in time and quantity, to 
 the period of existence of the individual, and 
 whichever knowledge the individual may ac 
 quire of facts preceding its own existence in 
 time is in all cases a matter first of intellectual 
 transmission and second of comparison. That 
 humanity should not possess the faculty of 
 understanding the primitive origin of all nat- 
 ural things is self evident, men being a part 
 only of nature, and in consequence unable of 
 consciousness beyond the limits of natural 
 things. 
 
 Therefore what no man possessed the faculty 
 of perceiving and understanding could not be 
 truly revealed by one man to another. 
 
 Nevertheless from the time, when man 
 first began to make the distinction between 
 himself and his surroundings, different beliefs 
 and creeds have taken possession of the human 
 mind as the result of assumed revelation. 
 
 But the methodically and critically observ- 
 
 * The question as to the controversy between * Genesis' 7 
 and " Evolution " will be referred to further on. 
 
— 44 — 
 
 ing man of the present age is not satisfied to 
 accept all as true, what has been a part and 
 parcel of the belief of his ancestors, simply 
 because he has by actual observation and test 
 ascertained a great part of such belief to have 
 been and to be error, contrary to fact and im- 
 possible. And as a result a considerable part 
 of present humanity doubts all, that cannot be 
 proven. 
 
 And it is admitted by all men having en- 
 joyed a non-sectarian education and intellec- 
 tual training: 
 
 That the exclusive and sole possible proof 
 for any supernatural theorem must be looked 
 for within the limits of intercourse (communi- 
 cation) between the supernatural and natural. 
 Communication from the supernatural to the 
 natural, being then called revelation, and from 
 the natural to the supernatural being called 
 prayer. 
 
 At the same degree, as we have succeeded 
 in preparing and perfecting tools and instru- 
 ments, by which the observations and percep- 
 tions of our senses are aided, at the same rate 
 we have drawn into the realm of natural 
 things, and facts subjects therefore belonging 
 to the number of supernatural mysteries. 
 
 What a few centuries ago we would have 
 considered as witchcraft, our courts punish- 
 
— 45 — 
 
 ing it with the penalty of death, we now pay 
 for having it done before our eyes in the way 
 of entertainment and amusement. 
 
 But if in this manner anything is presented 
 to us, which is observable to our senses, but 
 which is claimed to be supernatural, such pres- 
 entation is a fraud on its face, because our 
 senses are totally lacking all capability beyond 
 receiving impressions from natural causes* 
 and whatever beat the time of observation not 
 clearly the effect of a natural cause, will on 
 methodical observation prove to be so, and the 
 cause for doubt only lies in the insufficient or in 
 the unmethodical manner of observation. In 
 the history of early humanity almost all, that 
 man could not eat and drink, and because 
 methodical observation was as yet not part of 
 human faculties — was by men set apart as 
 belonging to the supernatural. Intellectual 
 laziness being then, as it is now, an essential 
 quality of humanity at large, it results there- 
 from, that by the masses real knowledge about 
 natural things is but very, very slowly ab- 
 sorbed, while these masses willingly accept on 
 the basis of authorities to them quoted and 
 against them claimed and without any trouble 
 to them of intellectual labor, a great quantity 
 of theorems relating to supernatural subjects, 
 the quality of theorems varying considerably 
 
— 48 — 
 
 under tlie influence of surroundings, company, 
 individual interest, ambition, vanity, pride, 
 ancestors, tradition, habit etc., etc. 
 
 All human creeds originate in the accep- 
 tance of revelations. Therefore no creed can 
 possibly be proven (as a mathematical theo- 
 rem can,) by intellectual construction only, 
 unless the existence, ^nature and correctness 
 of revelation be accepted on the basis of a 
 record thereof based on the perception, (cer- 
 tainly not infallible) of one or an other human 
 individual, whose authority in the premises is 
 based in all cases without any exception on 
 the individual's own statement concerning 
 said revelation, which may be supported or 
 brought about by favorable coincidences. 
 
 It is this the aid (revelation) your Eminence 
 refers to as the human reason being in need of, 
 in your utterance on page 803: 
 
 If the ideas of time and space and the rela- 
 tion of soul to body are beyond our compre- 
 hension, we cannot be expected with our un- 
 aided reason to explain away the apparent 
 incongruities that we find between the unseen 
 and the visible kingdom of the universe. 
 
 Your Eminence virtually admits all, what 
 has been hereabove stated as to the limits to 
 human faculties. But the fact is, that agnos- 
 tics ask to be excused from accepting such aid, 
 for which the support of proof is lacking, as 
 
— 47 — 
 
 for the supernatural {unseen) kingdom of the 
 universe it does. 
 
 After your Eminence has quoted on numer- 
 ous pages so-called evidences for the existence 
 of God, such as many thousands more of 
 pages might have been filled with to the same 
 purpose, your Eminence raises the question: 
 
 How, then, are we to account for this moral 
 unanimity of mankind in acknowledging a 
 Supreme Being? There is but one rational 
 solution to be given, which may be thus briefly 
 expressed: God enlightens with the light of 
 reason every man that cometh into the world. 
 Guided by that light, we recognize the Creator 
 from the contemplation of His works. We 
 naturally and without effort of mind, associ- 
 ate the Architect toith the temple of nature 
 luminously standing before us, Just as the 
 human voice sounding in our ears, is associ- 
 ated in our mind with a speaker hidden from 
 our view. How can our soul listen in silent 
 wonder to the heavenly music of the spheres, 
 without admiring the divine Composer ? We 
 cannot separate the Builder from His work. 
 We cannot admire the masterpiece without 
 bestowing a thought on the great Artist. The 
 connection is inseparable. The invisible 
 Author is "clearly seen, being understood by 
 the things that are made." 1 
 
— 48 
 
 Your Eminence among other expressions has 
 the following: We recognize the Creator from 
 the contemplation of his toorlc. 
 
 Now modern scientists contemplate nature 
 which is probably the same as your Eminence 
 designates by the expression/ 4 His work," and 
 the result of their contemplation is, that there 
 be naught in nature resembling to suddenness 
 of creation. All appears as the result of grad- 
 ual evolution. And in contemplating nature 
 the scientist has only a smile of pity for the 
 infantile imagination of early humanity, as- 
 suming on the authority of revelation a crea- 
 tion of ready made light (day), and darkness 
 (night), and of a firmament dividing the waters 
 above and below, and of land in one place and 
 water in the other place (under the firmament) 
 and of grass,herb and fruit tree,and later on of 
 the sun and the moon, to divide the day from 
 the night, and the stars also, and the fish and 
 the birds and cattle and amphibies and then 
 man (male and female), this being the creative 
 order of Genesis which Genesis somewhat in- 
 fringes upon by reserving the creation of the 
 female again for another occasion, when the 
 Creator discovered, that it be not good, that 
 the male should be alone. 
 
 The entire story bears so evidently the mark 
 of intellectual babydom, that the modern crit- 
 
— 49 — 
 
 ical intellect knows of no greater marvel than 
 that mankind stuck to the faiiy tale, as long 
 as it has, and that the human mind even at 
 this date can be warped by education, sur- 
 roundings, vanity, ambition, worldly interests 
 and fanaticism to the extent of combiningintel- 
 lectual training with fanatical obstinacy in 
 maintaining belief in a recital, which evi- 
 dently is nothing but the product of an un- 
 scrupulous storyteller of no more advanced 
 views, than the people were, to whom the story 
 first was told — a recital, the author of which 
 was evidently totally ignorant of the fact, that 
 the earth be one of the minor bodies in the 
 universe, but who in his ignorance assumed 
 it to be the very part thereof for the benefit of 
 which later on all the rest were made, an idea 
 so utterly in conflict with our present knowl- 
 edge of things, that, if blasphemy is a possible 
 thing, it is certainly a blasphemy to let divin- 
 ity reveal such arrant nonsense. 
 Then your Eminence continues: 
 By the same light of reason, we see alsa 
 within us a moral law written on our hearts. 
 We perceive an essential difference between 
 right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and 
 nice. From the recognition of this universal 
 law, we inevitably vnfer a universal Law- 
 giver. We hear a voice within us judging 
 us, commending or condemning us; and from 
 
1 
 
 50 — 
 
 
 the imperious judgment pronounced upon us, 
 we conclude that there exists a Sovereign Judge. 
 
 And thus God reveals Himself to us as our 
 Creator, as our Lawgiver, as our Judge. As 
 our Creator, He manifests Himself to us by 
 His Works. As our Lawgiver, He speaks to 
 us by His law written on our hearts. As our 
 Judge, He speaks to us by the voice of con- 
 science. We apprehend Him by our reason, 
 our moral sense, and our conscience. And, 
 therefore, as long as man continues to exer- 
 cise his intellectual and moral faculties, so 
 long will he profess his faith in the exist- 
 ence of a living God. 
 
 Here your Eminence assumes as proven what 
 is yet to be proven. The reason of agnostics 
 does not thus see the heart, nor a law written 
 on it, but is fully aware of the fact, that con- 
 science is a matter of education, that what to 
 one class of men is right is wrong to another 
 and vice versa. The followers of Ignatius de 
 Loyola as a theological school have laid out 
 quite different moral laws than the followers 
 of Jansenius did. The Mohammedans have 
 other moral laws than the Christians and so 
 on. And conscience in consequence proves to 
 be a very flexible article with humanity in gen- 
 eral, our daily experience even with ardent 
 christians teaching us, that they as a rule ap- 
 preciate conscience very highly in their neigh- 
 bors but do not give evidence of such high ap- 
 
— 51 — 
 
 preciation thereof in themselves. Different 
 classes of men and different nations have dif- 
 ferent notions about morals, and by your Em- 
 inence's theorem we would logically have to 
 come to the conclusion, that there be more 
 " Supreme Lawgivers" than one, which your 
 Eminence did certainly not intend. 
 
 But assuming for the sake of argument all 
 what your Eminence states to be true, what 
 does all of this prove in favor of a "knowl- 
 edge of the Supernatural." To the best 
 it can prove only, that by a voluntary act 
 of assumption we may be led to accept, 
 what our intellect has no faculty to conceive. 
 
 And there is nothing in all this more in 
 favor of Christianity than of Buddhism, and 
 again your Eminence asserts on page 252, that 
 "the divine mission of Christ is demonstrated 
 by the marvelous propagation and perpetuity 
 of the Christian religion". If permanence and 
 a striking approach to universality on the 
 part of a creed are proofs of a divine origin, 
 may they not be invoked on behalf of Buddh- 
 ism, which started some five centuries earlier 
 than Christianity, and includes among its 
 votaries a much larger fraction of the human 
 race than the Roman Catholic Church or even 
 Christianity at large, there being known to 
 exist on the surface of our globe : 500,000,000 
 
— 52 — 
 
 Buddhists; 160,000,000 Hindus ; 155,000,000 
 Mohammedans; 80,000,000 Confucians; 14,- 
 000,000 adherents of Shintoism (in Japan)- 
 7,000,000 Jews; of Christians there are 152,- 
 000,000 Roman Catholics; 75,000,000 Greek 
 Catholics; 100,000,000 other Christians ; and 
 about 157,000,000 of non-descripts. It thus 
 appears, that only about one human being in 
 every ten is a member of the Roman Church, 
 not even deducting those, who are so by out- 
 ward appearance only, while even amongst 
 Christians they can count not one on every 
 other one being non-Roman and scarcely two 
 on every one Israelite notwithstanding a mil- 
 lenium of persecution of Rome against Israel. 
 
 It would bring the present letter beyond 
 what "the busy restless class" would take in, 
 jvere I to prolong the refutation in special of 
 your Eminence's proofs of harmony between 
 science and revelation. Suffice it to say, 
 that, though the human heart may at times 
 yearn for a power stronger than man to find 
 refuge and support with, such yearning proves 
 naught in favor of revelation. 
 
 Of all the Revelations, the boldest, as faras 
 the human intellect be concerned, is undoubted- 
 ly the book "Genesis", of which Moses, the 
 leader of Israelites on their return to Asia 
 Minor, is the author. 
 
- 53 — 
 
 And all what scientists had to show in evi- 
 dence of an absolute human origin of this 
 book namely, that it contained : 
 
 1. many facts, of which Moses had no knowl- 
 edge and could have none. 
 
 2. many facts, of which the one set is in con- 
 tradiction with the other set. 
 
 3. many facts, of which it can be proven, by 
 what is within human knowledge about nat- 
 ural things, that they are not true or to be the 
 reverse of truth or to be impossible. 
 
 All this your Eminence calls: "childish 
 declamation" applying the qualification to 
 Messrs. Huxley and Draper directly. 
 
 I omit qualifying such expressions, they do 
 this themselves even before the most simple 
 minded. And is your Eminence really in ear- 
 nest in claiming, that these men should be hin : 
 dered from publishing the result of their re- 
 searches by gratitude towards their predeces- 
 sors on the path of research. Besides do they 
 not believe, that their predecessors could not 
 possibly have uttered the same results and 
 convictions, had they arrived at them? 
 
 With the blood of hundreds of thousands 
 has humanity conquered the freedom of con- 
 science against inquisition, persecution and 
 death, wielded against those indulging in such 
 "childish declamation" as to assert that 
 
— 54 — 
 
 REVELATION BE A SHAM. 
 
 Your Eminence notwithstanding these 
 "childish declamations", on which of old there 
 was the penalty of death, then deliberately and 
 solemnly undertakes to prove that ''there will- 
 never be any collision, but the most perfect 
 harmony will ever exist between science and 
 religion" And th£n your Eminence con- 
 tinues to declaim about God, the source of 
 science and truth, such as Christianity de- 
 fends it, as if "revelation" itself were an 
 accepted fact, and as if your Eminence had 
 already rendered proof of what had yet to be 
 proven. 
 
 It is this a result only of the sophistical 
 audacity, with which nothing is called "rea- 
 son" but what will reason out the theorems, 
 as the church teaches them. 
 
 And the rabiate dictum "that is {this mate- 
 rial world) shall have an end" (page 305), this 
 contradiction in total of all the results of natu- 
 ral science, is quoted in proof, of how the church 
 stands on the side of reason. And the reason 
 of all scientists, who were once deeply steeped 
 in Christianity is relegated to incompetency 
 by the quotation from Paul: "It is morally 
 impossible" says Paul, "for those who were 
 once illuminated by faiths who have tasted.* 
 also the heavenly gift, who were made par- 
 
-55- 
 
 takers of the Holy Ghost, and who have 
 fallen away by apostacy, to return once more 
 to the faith of their athers." 
 
 This is certainly true, because human reason 
 once advanced to emancipation from supersti- 
 tion and intellectual bondage cannot well re- 
 turn to them, unless insanity should benumb 
 its natural faculties. But this fact certainly 
 proves naught in favor of such superstition 
 and intellectual bondage. With all this your 
 Eminence's persistent attempt to harmonize 
 so-called revelation (the church) with the ac- 
 knowledged results of science, is identical with 
 explaining away the Church's former teach- 
 ings as soon as research has succeeded to 
 produce incontrovertable proof to the con- 
 trary. 
 
 We are told for instance, on page 313, that 
 "it is often erroneously assumed, that Scrip- 
 tures propound doctrines, which they never 
 professed to teach. The sacred volume was 
 not intended by its divine author to give us a 
 scientific treatise on astronomy or cosmogony 
 or geology », or even a complete series of chro- 
 nology or genealogy. These matters are inci- 
 dentally introduced to illustrate a higher sub- 
 ject. The purpose of the Scriptures is to re- 
 count God? s supernatural relations with man- 
 kind, his providential government of the 
 worlds and man's moral obligation to his 
 Creator" 
 
— 56 — 
 
 It is not so long ago, when the church as- 
 sumed the authority to settle scientific ques- 
 tions of astronomy, cosmogony and geology 
 on the very contrary claim to your Eminence's 
 assertion hereabove quoted, namely, that the 
 true source for all human knowledge be the 
 Eible (the word of the Lord) and the Roman 
 Church's interpretation thereof. But your 
 Eminence may permit the undersigned to fol- 
 low your Eminence's endeavors to explain 
 awa y the position formerly held by the Roman 
 Churcb. 
 
 Your Eminence proceeding to a particular 
 example states: 
 
 "When for instance the Sacred Text de- 
 clares, that the sun stood still in the heavens, 
 it simply gives expression to the miraculous 
 prolongation of the day ; and this in popular 
 language, such as even now, with our im- 
 proved knowledge of astronomy, we employ, 
 for we speak of the rising and the setting of 
 the sun as if, according to the Ptolemaic sys- 
 tem, we still believed, that he revolves around 
 the earth" . 
 
 But your Eminence does omit to state, that 
 
 this very method of expressing contrary to 
 facts in our daily intercourse is only one of the 
 many consequences of the Church sustaining, 
 favoring, upholding absolutely erroneous 
 teachings. What a hard fight with the church 
 
— 57 - 
 
 or its followers have Copernicus, Kepler and 
 Galileo had in trying to disabuse humanity 
 of this very error! Kepler's book "Epitome 
 of the Copernican Astronomy" was on ap- 
 pearance (1622) placed on the list of prohib- 
 ited books by the Congregation of the index 
 at Rome. 
 
 Kepler's biographer, Sir David Brewster, M. 
 A., D. C. L., states p. 223 of " Martyrs of Sci- 
 ence," "the moment Kepler learned this from 
 Ms correspondent Remus, he was thrown 
 into great alarm, and requested from him 
 some information respecting the terms and 
 consequences of the censure, which was thus 
 pronounced upon his work. He was afraid, 
 that it might compromise his personal safety, 
 if he went to Italy; — that he might be com- 
 pelled to retract his opinions; — that the cen- 
 sure might extend to Austria-, — that the sale 
 of his work would be ruined; and that he 
 must either abandon his country or his 
 opinions. 
 
 And with all this vour Eminence claims 
 under the caption: "The Church is the true 
 friend and promoter of science" for the Ro- 
 man Church the honor belonging to those 
 men, saying (page 311): It is to Coperni- 
 cus, a priest, and Canon, that the world is 
 indebted for the discovery of the planetary 
 revolutions around the sun. 
 
— 58 — 
 
 And your Eminence states (page 309): At no 
 'period of the OhurcK s history did she wield 
 greater authority than from the twelfth to the 
 sixteenth century. She exercised not only 
 spiritual but also temporal power, and she had 
 great influence with the princes of Christen- 
 dom;" and (p. 310): At no time did the hu- 
 man intellect revel in greater freedom' ' . And 
 yet during this period (1100 to 1600) absolute- 
 ly no progressive step was made in the knowl- 
 edge of Nature; it being indeed the period of 
 astrology and alchemy only, no other freedom 
 existing than the freedom to believe as the 
 Roman Church taught; and during these cen 
 turies of Aristotelic scholastic philosophy there 
 occurred: the crusade against the Albigenses 
 (heretics), the great revolt against Roman sup- 
 pression of liberty of conscience, since then 
 called the Protestant Reformation, the burn- 
 ing of Huss and the wars for the suppression 
 of Protestantism in Germany. 
 
 And yet it is true, that only simultaneously 
 with the shaking off by humanity of the Roman 
 bondage in matters of religion, the human in- 
 tellect did sufficiently reawaken (humanists) 
 to attempt progress in the matter of natural 
 science (Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo), and that 
 no sooner was this attempt made, but the 
 Roman Church attempted to call a "Halt", to 
 
— 59 — 
 
 such progress by Inquisition and persecution;. 
 
 Passing over from Astronomy to Geology 
 your Eminence has the following (page 314): 
 
 "The results of geological investigation* 
 by which it is claimed, that ages must have 
 elapsed between the formation of matter and 
 the creation of man, would seem to conflict 
 with the Boole of Genesis, which states, that 
 all vegetable and animal life was created with- 
 in the space of six days. But the Church, as 
 is well known, has never defined the meaning 
 to be attached to those days of Genesis. We 
 are at liberty, as far as the Church is con- 
 cerned, and if the deductions of science are 
 incontrovertible, we are compelled to ascribe 
 an indefinite period of years to each day. 
 The context itself insinuates, that the day 
 cannot be restricted to twenty four hours r 
 since, for the first three days, there was no 
 sun to measure their duration: and in the 
 second chapter of Genesis the word day i& 
 manifestly used to express an indefinite 
 veriod of time employed in the creation of 
 the material universe". 
 
 Your Eminence's statement, that "the con- 
 text itself 'insinuates', that the day cannot be 
 restricted to twenty four hours, even for the 
 first three days, since for the first three days, 
 there was no sun to measure their duration 
 by can be accounted for only by the easy going, 
 futile method, with which your Eminence 
 
— 60 — 
 
 deals with, great scientific questions in con- 
 trast with the intense care bestowed on ex- 
 plaining away doubts as to the correctness of 
 Genesis, but the claim thus made cannot be 
 advanced in sincerity, when Genesis specifi- 
 cally states: 
 
 "And God called the light DAY and the 
 darkness NIGHT." > 
 
 "And the evening and the morning were the 
 first day" ' . 
 
 And again: 
 
 (I. 16) "And God made two great lights, the 
 greater light to rule the day and the lesser 
 light to rule the night; He made the stars also". 
 
 And yet, it is not the sun, by which the (si- 
 deral, uniform) day is measured One revo- 
 lution (return of the same point on the earth- 
 ball to the same location relative to the universe 
 measures the uniform day . Genesis says nothing 
 about the ball being set a rolling later on. So 
 it must be assumed that ''Genesis" intended to 
 reveal, that the Lord set the ball a rolling on 
 the day of creation, and then there was the 
 condition given to measure the day by. But the 
 fact in the premises is, that the Roman Church 
 has forcibly receded now from the position of 
 claiming to possess in Bible (the so called word 
 of the Lord) and in apostolic tradition the ex- 
 clusive source for all truth and science. That 
 much has been decidedly gained, and it is im- 
 
 ' 
 
 
— 61 — 
 
 possible for the Roman Church to now cover 
 up its own tracks. 
 
 Besides your Eminence is well aware, that 
 the objections of scientists to the teaching of 
 Genesis do not turn merely or mainly rest on 
 the duration of the epoch signified by the 
 Hebrew word translated 4i day", but relate 
 rather to the order, in which several creative 
 processes are said to have taken place. 
 
 Your Eminence asserts that "the chronologi- 
 cal order of Moses is borne out by the re- 
 searches of geologists, who have discovered, 
 that vegetable fossils are anterior to animal 
 remains, and that those of the lower animals 
 are more ancient than those of any human 
 skeletons ever found } \ 
 
 Wow this order as described in Genesis, is 
 not so unconditionally admitted, as your Em- 
 inence claims it to be. Natural Science has 
 wiped out altogether the division lines be- 
 tween the vegetable and animal kingdom, the 
 two being so much blended one with the other, 
 that but for the reverence to bible and habit, 
 the distinction would be obsolete altogether. 
 It would have been more to the point, had 
 your Eminence taken up the scriptural asser- 
 tions one after the other and explained some 
 of their inconsistencies with the universally 
 accepted conclusions of scientists. We read 
 in Genesis, for instance, that the earth, one 
 
— 62 — 
 
 of the least considerable of the planets, was 
 created on the first "day", and the snn, the 
 center of the system, to which the earth belongs, 
 on the fourth day, but that light preceded 
 the sun for " three days", that vegetable life 
 was brought forth at a date anterior to the 
 existence of solar light and heat. Again we 
 read, that winged fowl were brought forth on 
 the "day" preceding that, on which creeping 
 things or reptiles were created, although, if 
 anything be considered an established fact in 
 natural history, it is, that without the sun 
 and his weight, combustion and light, 
 there be no earth-globe moving and condition- 
 ed as our globe is, — and that without the 
 presence of heat and light no vegetable life 
 could exist such as Genesis reveals it anterior 
 to the existence of the sun, and that reptiles 
 preceded birds. These are the crucial points 
 in the record of Genesis, which cannot be rec- 
 onciled with the results of scientific research, 
 and which leave Genesis in error and in con- 
 sequence as of human authorship. 
 
 Again your Eminence in the 19th chapter, 
 bearing the caption, "Origin and Destiny 
 of Man as viewed by Modern Unbelief," 
 with great assurance denies two things : 
 first, that mankind be descended from the 
 lower animals, or, to speak more specifically, 
 
— 63 — 
 
 from anthropoid apes; second, that species be 
 produced by variation and adaptation to en- 
 vironment under the law of natural selection 
 instead of being each the outcome of an in- 
 dependent act of creation. 
 
 With regard to the repudiation of the 
 theory, that mankind be descended from 
 anthropoid apes, the physiologist will acknow- 
 ledge, that the last link is as yet missing in 
 the chain of evidence brought foward in sup- 
 port of that conclusion. But, as up to a few 
 years ago, a similar gap existed in the genea- 
 logy of the horse, which has since been 
 clearly filled, the same prudence practiced by 
 Papacy on so many other occasions, where 
 notwithstanding all the revelations the deci- 
 sion was deferred or refused on account of 
 the uncertainty of the ground, the church did 
 stand on, may also in this case save to the 
 Church the explicit necessity of again aban- 
 doning a position once taken notwithstanding 
 its claimed infallibility. 
 
 In affirming the independent creation and 
 immutability of species your Eminence dis- 
 cards a belief, which now is universal 
 among scientists. There is notwithstanding 
 this denial on your Eminence's part no known 
 man of science now living and enjoying the 
 respect of his co-laborers, who rejects the fun- 
 
— 64 — 
 
 damental principle of Darwinism, viz., that 
 species are evolved by variation under the laws 
 of natural selection. 
 
 The real question at issue seems to be be- 
 tween the Church and agnostics : Shall human- 
 ity be deceived concerning what it would like 
 to know but cannot know ? The church an- 
 swers : I do not deceive, because I was told 
 what I teach by revelation, which I believe to 
 have told the truth. 
 
 And agnostics answer : 
 
 Those revelations are unproven and unprov- 
 able, and there is suspicion, that they indeed 
 were the product either of illusion and 
 hallucination or of fraud right out. Hence 
 we doubt, disbelieve and remain satisfied with 
 believing only what can be proven. 
 
THIRD LETTER. 
 On Miracles. 
 
 Your Eminence 
 
 May permit me to aver, that from the pre- 
 ceding statement concerning the limits of 
 human intellectual faculties it is evident, 
 that, as man does not possess the possibility 
 of ascertaining whatever be not part and par- 
 cel of nature, it is likewise not in his faculty 
 to ascertain the negative of any supernatural 
 theorem, and as a consequence acceptance or 
 refusal remains a matter of individual selec- 
 tion. 
 
 Atheists say: There is no Supreme Self con- 
 scious Being either distinct from Nature or 
 identical with it. 
 
 Pantheists say: Nature and the Selfcon' 
 scious Supreme Being are one. 
 
 Both these philosophical schools are on 
 the same side with Christianity in either 
 asserting or denying what is beyond human 
 knowledge. 
 
— 66 — 
 
 Bat Agnostics say: We do not know 
 but what is part of observable nature and that 
 not all and beyond that nothing. Whenever 
 man follows his selection and inclination 
 in assuming one or another of the theorems ad- 
 vanced concerning the so-called supernatural, 
 whatever he may thus assume, can never 
 become knowledge as the result of observa- 
 tion by our senses, but will and must remain 
 the product of a voluntary resolution to as- 
 sume as true what can not be proven. All 
 pretenses to the contrary are the results either 
 of illogical construction or of distortion of 
 facts. 
 
 It being admitted, that all creeds (dogmas) 
 relating to the supernatural or to Divinity 
 and its qualities can find their justification 
 only in revelation from the supernatural, 
 but having shown at the same time, that it 
 is beyond the human faculty to perceive the 
 supernatural, it remains to consider the possi- 
 bility or probability of a revelation from the 
 supernatural taking the form of natural 
 things and substances. Assuming, that such 
 taking of a natural form by the supernatural 
 be possible, then there are two ways, in 
 which possibility may be assumed to evolve 
 into a fact. 
 
 The one alternate way assumed as possible 
 
 ' 
 
 \ 
 
— 67 — 
 
 would be the penetration of universal nature 
 as such by the supernatural. 
 
 In this assumed case all, what has been 
 said with regard to nature, applies to the 
 supernatural also, it having become identical 
 with natural substance and having been 
 proven to be subject to natural laws and to be 
 observable by men, to the extent only of 
 natural existence. 
 
 The other alternate way assumed as possible 
 would be the identification of the super- 
 natural with selected, single, sporadic natural 
 objects. 
 
 And such identification of the second class 
 is ordinarily claimed under the name of divine 
 quality in otherwise human beings or of mira- 
 cle as the substance of revelation, on which 
 creeds are based and built. 
 
 In accordance therewith your Eminence 
 gives the assurance (page 240) that miracles 
 have always been justly regarded as the most 
 luminous and convincing evidence in support 
 of the doctrines they confirm, and this certain- 
 ly would be so, were it not for the peculiar 
 state of affairs, that since humanity acquired 
 the faculty of methodical observation and 
 tests, all miracles have ceased, or have been 
 relegated and confined to remote parts, far 
 away from civilization, as in the case of re- 
 
— 68 — ■ 
 
 cent beatifications. And none of those on 
 record can be repeated. And snch records 
 as exist of miracles, when subjected to crit- 
 ical investigation, have invariably proven 
 insufficient to substantiate the facts. 
 
 And the records of the most miraculous of 
 all miracles, the creation of the universe as 
 recorded in Moses's' book "Genesis" has 
 been proven to be contradictory in itself, and 
 the next thereto, the taking of human indi- 
 vidual shape of a tripartite interest in 
 divinity itself, is seriously menaced in its 
 credit by the non-existence of secular proof of 
 the existence at any time or anywhere of 
 the individual so referred to. 
 
 But the Roman Church carries the use she 
 makes of miracles far beyond this. The Ro- 
 man Church claims, that every one of her 
 l>riests on every day of the year, when cele- 
 brating mass, accomplishes the miracle of con- 
 verting a wafer into a piece of a humanized 
 tripartite personal interest in divinity, and 
 w r hen we agnostics say : We cannot see it, then 
 the Roman Church says : " You need not see 
 it, you must believe iV ' . 
 
 And we agnostics say : Even admitting the 
 existence of an all-powerful, all-wise and all- 
 charitable Supreme Being and Divinity, must 
 we believe, that Its entire relation to poor hu~ 
 
~* 69 
 
 manity be the one as between a trickster and 
 liis victims, — in giving us an intellect, which 
 cannot understand and must doubt and deny 
 such things to be — and in demanding of us at 
 the same time under penalty of eternal dam- 
 nation, that we shall vilify what it is our na- 
 ture to hold most highly, the to us given intel- 
 lect namely, by believing what we know not 
 to be and even know to be impossible? 
 
 If there be blasphemy anywhere, such an 
 assumption would be blasphemy, and not the 
 agnostics do commit it, but they make use of 
 their best of possession, of their intellect 
 namely, and they enjoy its use, this being better 
 gratitude than which no donor ever received. 
 
 With all this the distinction should be made 
 as between a believer on the testimony of 
 miracles and a believer without miracles. 
 
 He, who requires miracles in order to be- 
 lieve, is an old fashioned agnostic of a lower 
 intellectual order, because, when he imagined 
 he saw a miracle, his infantile intellect ac- 
 cepted such miracle as proof, and he believed 
 in consequence. 
 
 In order to completely carry out the doc- 
 trine, that to believe be a virtue and the result 
 of divine grace, a dogma of the Roman Church, 
 to which I shall be compelled to again refer 
 later on, it would appear more consistent in 
 

 — 70 — ■ 
 
 the Roman Church, not even to point to mira- 
 cles in support of her faith. As to this 
 Mohammet did take a mojre correct position, be- 
 cause in Chapter XIII. (near the end) of the 
 Kor&n he quotes the following as to him re- 
 vealed by the Lord: 
 
 "Though a Kor&n were revealed, by which 
 mountains should be removed, or the earth 
 cleaved in sunder, or the dead be caused to 
 speak, it would be in vairt ' . 
 
 It is thus, that Mohammet could dispense 
 with miracles and nevertheless demand, 
 "faith" on the part of his followers; and he 
 formulated this demand in the same chapter 
 as follows: 
 
 "To this purpose have we sent down the 
 Kor&n a rule of judgment". 
 
 The Roman Church nevertheless has con- 
 tinued to claim miracles, the records on beat- 
 ification* bristling with their recital. And 
 even in modern times such things as tha 
 motion of the eyes of the picture of the 
 
 d Beatification is a solemn judgment of the Church, de- 
 claring that persons dying after a most exemplary life, or 
 put to death in hatred of the faith, by whose intercession 
 with God, after death, well authenticated miracles have 
 been performed, enjoy eternal happiness in heaven. The 
 Pontiff, therefore,allow8 these blessed personages to receive 
 certain honors and homage in the diocese, in whicft they 
 were born, or in the religious orders to which they belonged 
 
— 71 — 
 
 Virgin at Siena and the apparition of the 
 Virgin in the tree at Lourdes have been sup- 
 ported in their credit by the clergy of the 
 Roman Church. And it is generally believed, 
 that the time has come, when it may be con- 
 sidered as opportune, that the Virgin make 
 her appearance somewhere on this continent, 
 so as to prepare for an object of pilgrimage, 
 the practice thereof having always been essen- 
 tially a practice of the Roman Church, the 
 same materially contributing towards the in- 
 tensity of faith in the minds of the pilgrims 
 and giving an outlet to the fervor of all desi- 
 rous of becoming connected with some mira- 
 culous event. 
 
 In fact, miracles have been claimed by the 
 Roman Church to such an extent, that a reac- 
 
 in life, or within the limits of the country where they lived 
 and died. 
 
 Canonization, on tiie contrary, declares, in a still more 
 solemn and final form, the heroic saintliness of life, or the 
 heroic witness borne to Christ by torments or death en- 
 dured for His sake; and attests at the same time the won- 
 derful miracles wrought by a saint's intercession with the 
 Almighty. This final sentence of canonization, by placing 
 the names of the persons canonized on the canon or cata- 
 logue of the saints, extends the honor and homage due 
 them to the universal Church. This sentence enjoins all 
 Catholics to reverence and honor the persons, whose sancti- 
 ty is thus proclaimed by the supreme authority of the 
 Church.— [Bernard O'Reilly, N. Y. Sun, Dec. 15, 1889.] 
 
— 72 — 
 
 tion must result. x\s a consequence reasoning 
 humanity shrunk back from them, and it is at 
 present rather highly appreciated by the com- 
 mon mortal, that so little is seen of tliem, and 
 this is attributed to skepticism as to their very 
 existence. 
 
 Since the test of methodical observation has 
 in this matter done away with illusions, hallu- 
 cinations, false pretences, miracles tne not 
 easily indulged in either by saints before 
 or after their death, or by other common 
 mortals, except by the irrepressible spirit- 
 ualists, who notwithstanding the manifold 
 exposures of intentional fraud on the part 
 of their mediums, continue this trade of 
 deception, and indeed the Roman Church 
 must be congratulated to have nothing in 
 common with them not even miracles. ^W/iat 
 fools these mortals be" to have accepted mir- 
 acles at all in the way they have done. 
 
FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 The Real Position of the Roman Catholic 
 Church Towards Agnosticism in 
 Contrast With Cardinal 
 Gibbons' Attempt to 
 Prove the Super- 
 natural. 
 
 Your Eminence 
 
 May permit, that it be assumed for the 
 sake of argument, that an agnostic by the 
 reading of your Eminence's book had become 
 convinced, first of the existence of the super- 
 , natural and of the Supreme Being as the \ elf- 
 conscious creator of (he universe, second of 
 the immortality of the human soul, third of 
 the divinity of Christ, fourth of the Roman 
 Pontifex being the true represenfntive of 
 Christ on earth, and of the Roman Church 
 possessing the real and true teachings of 
 Christ. 
 
— 74 — 
 
 Would with all this he have become a Roman 
 Catholic, in full harmony with the teachings 
 of the Roman Church? Inconceivable as this 
 may appear on the face of the assertion, your 
 Eminence knows, that then as yet he should 
 not be a true Roman Catholic, and why not? 
 Simply because it is heresy, according to the 
 Roman Church, that'the true catholic's faith 
 be the result of intellectual conclusion,* or 
 that intellectual conclusion alone be the proper 
 basis for such creed, while the virtue of faith 
 is thought to be such proper basis and a gift 
 from divine grace. Thus were a hundred thou- 
 sand agnostics ready as a consequence of your 
 Eminence's persuasion to abandon agnosticism, 
 because their intellects had been led by your 
 Eminence to conclusions otherwise in harmo- 
 ny with the teachings of the Roman Church, 
 your Eminence would before admitting them 
 have to demandas the agent of the Church the 
 abjuration on their part of their faith being 
 the exclusive result of their intellectual labors, 
 and your Eminence would have to demand 
 the acknowledgement on their part, that their 
 belief and faith be founded in divine grace t 
 and not on their own intellectual labors. 
 
 * Reference is made to the decrees setting the books of 
 Prof. Hermes on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum as 
 containing heresy and to other evidence to the same effect 
 
— 75 ~ 
 
 In other words the agnostic can enter the" 
 fold of the Roman Church only as a matter of 
 choice, selection and inclination and not as a 
 matter of intellectual conclusion, the agnostic 
 by a voluntary act assuming to have been en- 
 dowed (as if by an unprovable supernatural 
 power, enchantment) with the grace of faith. 
 
 Strange as it may appear, divinity does not 
 bestow such grace on agnostics as a rule, and 
 your Eminence should therefore feel rather 
 pity with these disfavored mortals, and it 
 would be more rational and more charitable, if 
 your Eminence would have words of kind- 
 ness and of amiable persuasion for them in- 
 stead of rational reasoning, which by the de- 
 crees of the church can do them no good, and 
 of rebukes and accusation, which are not 
 founded on fact. 
 
 And is it not giving an evidence of weak- 
 ness of your Eminence's cause to attempt to 
 convince the intellectually untrained, while 
 the professionals in the matter of philosophy 
 and research are met with the declaration, that 
 they should be considered as Tiors du combat. 
 
 It thus happens, that the undersigned 
 "raises the claim of more truly defining the 
 road to Roman Catholicism in special or to or- 
 thodoxy in general, than your Eminence has 
 defined it in the book on "Our Christian Her- 
 itage. 5 ' 
 
— 76 — 
 
 Let the membership of any orthodox creed 
 •community be a matter of selection, inclina- 
 tion and of the welfare of the people at large, 
 rather than to attempt to convince (since vio- 
 lence is no longer applicable), by reasoning 
 out theorems being beyond the conception of 
 liuman reason. Let religion be a matter of 
 sentiment and of charity rather than of dog- 
 ma and intellect. 
 
 Theologians should abandon their disputes 
 as to creeds, but stand squarely on the funda- 
 mental assertion, that the one amongst all 
 creeds and religious communities be the most 
 acceptable, by which the happiness (harmony 
 with surrounding nature), of the individual in 
 special and humanity in general be best pro- 
 moted. 
 
 It is on the basis as stated that all confessions 
 'canact in unity of purpose, namely of increas- 
 ing human happiness by mutual charity with- 
 in the limits of reason and equity. 
 
 Whether it be the Roman Catholic Church, 
 by which the happiness of the North American 
 citizen and people be best protected and pro- 
 moted, will be a matter of consideration of my 
 seventh letter to be directed to your Emi- 
 nence. 
 
 
FIFTH LETTER. 
 
 Different Methods of Propagating the 
 
 Roman Catholic Faith under 
 
 Different Circumstances. 
 
 Your Eminence 
 
 Creeds, being practically amongst the human: 
 race a matter of surrounding influences and 
 of individual inclinations, are essentially a 
 matter of individual right also to the extent 
 of non-interference with the equal right of all 
 other human individuals, and to the limit as 
 far as so-called religious practices are con- 
 cerned, of non-intrusion on the equal welfare 
 of others. As a consequence thereof the gov- 
 ernment of worldly affairs violates the equal 
 rights of one part of living humanity by favor- 
 ing the creed of another part, and no govern- 
 ment can be a just government to all citizens, 
 unless it be totally and absolutely disconnect- 
 ed from any and all creeds, while it may regu- 
 late by law on the basis of equality the rela- 
 
— 78 — 
 
 tions of creed communities to natural things 
 (Persons and property). 
 
 And all creeds being based either on assump- 
 tions with regard to supernatural theorems or 
 on the assertions of individual men (or women) 
 as to communications received from the un- 
 proven supernatural realm, no creed can 
 claim an absolute rational proof for the neces- 
 sity of being accepted by humanity at large. 
 Their legitimate medium of propagation should 
 therefore bs persuasion alone. 
 
 It is on this basis, that all confessions can 
 live in peace and can begin the millenium of 
 human happiness free of fanatismand hatred, 
 where every human being be conscious of the 
 purpose of its own existence and life and of 
 that of all others, namely: to promote the hap- 
 piness of all. 
 
 The Roman Church, it is true, claims, that 
 mankind should mind happiness during nat- 
 ural life as naught in comparison with an 
 eventual happiness hereafter, and that she is 
 the church, through the medium of which ex- 
 clusively such eventual happiness hereafter 
 can be secured, all of which claim she bases on 
 1 'revelation' ' and ' 'miracle in evidence thereof. ' ' 
 But as neither one nor the other has been 
 proven, it is but reasonable, that mankind 
 should prefer happiness during natural life to 
 
— 79 — 
 
 eventual happiness in supernatural life. The 
 history of mankind nevertheless is evidence of 
 human tendency to use brutal powerand phy- 
 sical compulsion for the propagation of faith. 
 
 If (on page 268) your Eminence asserts: 
 The church draws no sword to enforce her 
 authority, then this is only one of the many 
 sophistical differenciations between "doingand 
 having done," or "having caused to be done." 
 The church educated her followers at all times 
 to the belief u that to propagate A. M. D. G. 
 the realm of the church would justify war, 
 shedding of blood, compulsion and tyranny, 
 and history does contradict your Eminence in 
 so many instances that none need be quoted. 
 
 But as the less educated are also expected 
 to read this present protest against the Propa- 
 ganda as advocated by your Eminence, I may 
 be permitted to refer to the one of many 
 cases, to the decrees of Crusades by the 
 Popes Innocent III. and Honorius III. against 
 the followers of Vaux and their protector 
 Count Raymond of Albigeois and Toulouse — 
 to the atrocities committed under and devas- 
 tation resulting from these decrees, (1212-1229) 
 and to the completion of the conversion of the 
 Albigenses by the Roman Catholic Institution 
 of the Holy Inquisition. 
 
 And the tendency of the Roman Church to- 
 
— 80 — 
 
 wards using arbitrary power for the suppres- 
 sion of her antagonists has not left her alto- 
 gether. Its expression only is modified. 
 
 The tendency of conquest by the use of 
 sword, fire and rack has modernized in the 
 United States of North America into a propa- 
 ganda by persuasion for political power and 
 for a majority of voters as instrumental to the 
 ruling power of the Roman Hierarchy. 
 
 And the Roman Church has devised sundry 
 appropriate means and methods of increasing 
 her voting power, and in consequence her polit- 
 ical power with a view towards securing a 
 majority and in consequence the controling 
 political power. 
 
 The almost infallible method to gain a Ro- 
 man Catholic voter is to educate a young citi- 
 zen to become a Roman Catholic voter. Thence 
 the Church's assiduity in behalf of secterian 
 education. It is true, that the fright of agnos- 
 ticism is driving protestant Zealots* in the 
 
 * jACKS0NViLLE,FLA.,Dec.l4.-The Presbyterian Synod 
 of West Florida and Alabama has been in session at Pen- 
 secola for the past three days. A profound sensation, 
 was created by Dr. Shearer, President of Davidson Col- 
 lege, North Carolina, in his address last night. The 
 reverend gentleman denounced the common school sys- 
 tem of the country, whose non-sectarianism prevented 
 education of youths in the religion of their fathers. He 
 Advocated strongly the advisability of having the child* 
 
— 81 — 
 
 same direction, namely, towards helping the 
 BomanChurchin carrying out her ambition and 
 bold conspiracy against the proudest of Amer- 
 ican institutions, the public non-sectarian 
 school system. And true it is, that the pro- 
 testant people at large are helping the Roman 
 Church, though involuntarily, unintentionally 
 and inadvertently, in carrying out her plans, 
 by their own infringement on the unsectarian 
 character of our public schools in persisting 
 on and maintaining Bible readings in their 
 public schools. Neither from a literary or 
 aesthetic nor from a general scientific stand- 
 point, nor in the matter of acquaintance with 
 the history of mankind, nor even for the 
 children's morals can anything be gained by 
 these readings, — the usual effect being to 
 cause them to look at home for the chapters, 
 which the teacher had skipped and thus to 
 initiate them into some of the most obscene 
 reading, the literature of any one nation ever 
 produced. 
 
 Another method for increasing the voting 
 power of the Roman Church in the United 
 
 ren of Presbyterians educated in schools fostered by the 
 church, so that therein they might receive religious 
 training in consonance with the faith of their parents, 
 and moral instruction now denied to an appreciable ex- 
 tent in the Government educational institutions. 
 
— 82 — 
 
 States of North America is the ardent mission- 
 ary work now being carried on by the Church 
 amongst the negroes of the South. 
 
 And still another method taken into view 
 and worked at present although not intended 
 to be carried out in the nearest future is the 
 converting of Indian tribes to the Roman 
 Church, and then to have them accepted as 
 voting citizens. 
 
 And this propaganda does not exclusively 
 take shape in your Eminence's address to the 
 people of this republic,but it receives a power- 
 ful impulse also from outside by the bold 
 outcry of " Independence or Annexation ", 
 as now openly raised by the Roman Catholic 
 officials and press of the Provinces of On- 
 tario and Canada,they being ready to carry out 
 the treasonable instructions received from the 
 Hierarchy.* And the flag thus raised has the 
 
 *Montreal, Dec 14. — The feeling in favor of annexa- 
 tion to the United States is growing stronger in Canada 
 every day. The Montreal Aldermen recently paid a visit 
 to St. Paul and several other points, and since their re- 
 turn many of them have expressed themselves boldly in 
 favor of the annexation of Canada to the United States. 
 The feeling has been increased by the threats of the Eng- 
 lish majority in the Dominion to deprive the French 
 Canadians and Roman Catholics of the rights guaranteed 
 to them by the treaty of Paris. Several of the French- 
 Canadian papers have declared in favor of annexation. 
 
 Last night the Club National, the leading French- 
 
— 83 — 
 
 evident object to bring about an increase 
 of the Roman Catholic voting power 
 within the United States of North America. 
 The Roman Church thus seems to be preparing 
 for its conquest of these United Spates, by 
 more refined methods than those applied 
 under Louis VIII. and Louis IX. in France or 
 under Spanish and Roman rule on the South 
 American Continent in former centuries. 
 
 If the means applicable under altered cir- 
 cumstances have turned out to be "persuasion" 
 
 Canadian political organization, which is backed by the 
 Quebec Government, held a crowded meeting to discuss 
 the question whether annexation would be in the inter- 
 est of the Canadian people. Several speakers opposed 
 the movement, but a sensation was caused by President 
 Gouia, who is the son-in-law of Premier Mercier, the head 
 of the Quebec Government, coming out strongly in favor 
 of annexation to the States. He said, that with many 
 others he would be in favor of a Canadian republic, but 
 the conduct of the English majority in the Dominion 
 showed, that they could not expect to receive fair play 
 from the majority in such a republic, and they would pre- 
 fer to cast their lot with the people of the United States 
 under the American Constitution, which was the freest in 
 the world. The French-Canadians would have also abso- 
 lute liberty and all their rights would be respectei. 
 
 Several other prominent speakers also declared in favor 
 of annexation. A sensation was caused by the stand 
 taken by President Gouin, as it is believed he is inspired 
 by Premier Mercier, whom he accompanied to the recent 
 Baltimore Convention. It is believed the club will de- 
 clare in favor of annexation. — New York Sun,I>ec. 15, 1889* 
 
— 84 — 
 
 almost exclusively, it is certainly great pro- 
 gress of humanity, that "persuasion" no longer 
 takes such shape, as it took in the case of 
 Galileo, and would have taken with Coperni- 
 cus and Kepler had they been within Roman 
 jurisdiction. And it is on the other hand an 
 honor to the church, that as in the case of 
 Cardinal Hohenzollen at Galileo's time, so at 
 all times there have been prominent men in the 
 fold of the church free of zealotic fanatism. 
 
 But to persuasion there are as yet sundry 
 modifications. So your Eminence attempts to 
 persuade the North American people, that free 
 thinkers and agnostics are no better, than 
 ancient pagans were, a position being true to 
 the general tendency of the Roman Church. 
 
 In fact theChnrcli takes to*vardsheretics(and 
 now towards agnostics) thesame unjustified po- 
 sition as taken by the pagan Tacitus (your Em- 
 inence on page 262) took towards Christianity 
 calling it "a detestable superstition provoking 
 the just hatred of humanity**. And thesame 
 consequences are the result now, as they were 
 then, namely: persecution on the one hand and 
 martyrdom and propagation jointly on the 
 other. 
 
 And then as now the persecutors (p. 262) 
 do not think it worth w7iile to inquire into 
 the charges^ which prejudice and hate had 
 
— 85 — 
 
 invented against an inoffensive people n . 
 
 And at the present age (p. 262) "The 
 conservative element in society opposes be- 
 cause it (agnosticism) is new, and because the 
 {old) worship had the authority of venerable 
 antiquity. This is the religion, which they 
 and their fathers had followed for genera- 
 tions, and they can not calmly suffer this new 
 sort to disturb the old order of things" . 
 
 Your Eminence states (on p. 9) as follows: 
 While these images are passing through the 
 press, we are informed by the daily papers, 
 that an anti-Christian Sunday school has 
 been opened in a public hall in Baltimore, 
 and that weekly sessions are regularly held 
 there. We learn from the same source, that 
 some Protestant clergymen of our city have 
 urged the Mayor to suppress this infidel 
 school. Waivixo the question" of right 
 which the civil authorities may have to 
 interfere in matters of this kind, i do 
 not believe, that any radical cure of this 
 religious distemper can be effected by repress- 
 ice measures. It is not by coercion, but by 
 the voluntary surrender of the citadel of the 
 heart, that man is converted. Coercion only 
 drives the poison into the social body, where it 
 secretly ferments. Oar divine Saviour never 
 invoked the sword to vindicate His doctrines. 
 He rebuked his disciple, when he once drew 
 the sword in defense of His Master, and com- 
 
— 86 — 
 
 manded him to put it back into its scabbard. 
 * i The weapons of our warfare, ' ' saps the Apos- 
 tle, iL are not carnal" but spiritual; they are 
 the loeapons of argument, of persuasion and 
 charity. The only sword I would draw 
 against the children of unbelief, is "the 
 sword of the Spirit, which is the word of 
 God; ' ' and the only fire I would light against 
 them, is the fire of divine love,which our Lord 
 came to enkindle in the hearts of men. - In a 
 word, I would convince them, that Christian- 
 ity "is profitable for all things, having the 
 promise of the life that now is," as well as 
 "of that which is to come" 
 
 Your Eminence thus yields to circumstances 
 only. If the Roman Church possessed as yet 
 political influence or power enough for repres- 
 sive measures, the Roman Catholic conscience 
 would forbid to your Eminence to waive the 
 question of right to interfere in matters of 
 the teaching of heresy in the United States. 
 Your Eminence could not well contradict this 
 assumption, because it rests on the preced- 
 ents and ecclesiastical practices, as demon- 
 strated for centuries and on the teachings 
 of the Roman Church as such. 
 
 That Jesus of Nazareth forbade to his disci- 
 ple to use brutal power,has absolutely no value 
 for demonstrating, that the Roman Church did 
 or would do the same. The practices of the 
 
— 87 — 
 
 Churchill this matter as in many others have 
 for many years not been the practice of Christ. 
 To deny this, because the Catholic Sovereigns 
 and the Church were two, would be subterfuge 
 only. Had Christ ever assumed the exterior and 
 appearance of a prince, as your Eminence does; 
 the judgment of Pontius Pilatus would have 
 been a just one instead of an unjust one, such 
 as the story goes. What in the teaching of 
 Christ justifies the Roman Pontifex in claim- 
 ing, that he cannot (non possumus) relinquish 
 temporal power and possession without betray- 
 ing his mission as the high priest of the Church 
 of Christ? 
 
 There are many good reasons to believe, that 
 were Jesus of Nazareth to reappear on the 
 earth at the present moment, he would not 
 find it in accordance with his own teachings 
 and prescriptions to belong to the Roman 
 Catholic Church and much less to live as a 
 prelate of the church does. 
 
 To compare Christianity of later centuries 
 with Paganism of earlier centuries has no ele- 
 ment, by which those living at present can be 
 convinced, either that their free thought or 
 agnosticism sets them back into paganism, 
 nor that the Christian practices of the present 
 day are any better, than those of free thinkers 
 would be, did they have the temporal 
 
— 88 — 
 
 means, as the church has, to practice with, or 
 were they sufficiently bent in this direction 
 and sufficiently numerous to collect the same 
 worldly wealth as the Roman Church does. 
 
 It is traditional with the Roman Church to 
 apply all what its prominent defenders against 
 paganism once said against pagans, also to 
 modern searchers for facts and truth. But 
 the practice nevertheless is not a good one, 
 because nothing can thus be rationally 
 proven. 
 
 Before leaving the allusions of your Emi- 
 nence's book I beg leave to state, that the 
 question as to who, the pagan or the christian 
 human individual, enjoyed the greater happi- 
 ness in quantity and quality, has been many 
 times discussed and differently answered, but 
 whichever way the decision may fall, it is ir- 
 relevant as to the questions under considera- 
 tion, other social conditions relating to the 
 same questions. 
 
 Under equal surrounding conditions it would 
 appear probable, that as against the one, whose 
 conscience is continuously troubled b^ doubt- 
 ing what he holds himself in duty bound to be- 
 lieve, the other one, whose convictions, con- 
 science and duties are in peace and harmony, 
 is more apt to feel happy than the former. 
 
 One of the reasons, why the Roman Cath- 
 
— 89 — 
 
 olic Church be eligible to a higher de- 
 gree than other religious creeds, your Emi- 
 nence has claimed to be the Roman 
 Church's anti-slavery championship. 
 
 What an enormous error is it to attribute 
 the melting away of human slavery to the 
 effulgent rays of the gospel, if under gospel 
 the teachings of the Roman Catholic clergy 
 are meant. 
 
 Has there ever been such a thing heard of, 
 as a conflict between the Roman Church and 
 the Southern slaveholders ? 
 
 The Roman clergy confined itself in this 
 case, as it had in all others, to admonish the 
 slaveowner to charity and the slave to patient 
 endurance, but the institution as such was 
 not known to be contrary to the doctrine 
 and effulgent rays of the lights of the Roman 
 Church. A Baltimore or New Orleans arch- 
 bishop of ante-civil war times would have very 
 much hesitated before preaching the melting 
 away of slavery. 
 
 In 1839 for the first time, and only when 
 Protestant England was practically suppress- 
 ing slave trade, Pope Gregory XVI. enlisted 
 the church in the same endeavor. 
 
 Thus the Roman Church modified her me- 
 thods of propagation of faith from the applica- 
 tion of brutal power to incrimination of her 
 
— 90 — 
 
 adversaries and again to sundry varieties of 
 persuasion. One of the later phases shown is 
 your Eminence's fictitious proposition to meet 
 agnostics on their own ground of proof by in- 
 tellectual labor. The proposition to persuade 
 the intellectually untrained, being the latest 
 phase of Roman propaganda, would be an 
 advantageous move,* if it were to pass un- 
 heeded and without protest, and this republic 
 might one day awaken, were the move to be 
 successful, to the fact, that it be under the 
 authority and rule of the Roman Pontifex, 
 who then without any doubt would supercede 
 your Eminence or your Eminence's successor 
 as the head of the Roman Hierarchy of the 
 United States of North America and would 
 find all the church's boldest visions as to tem- 
 poral power realized by the influence his 
 Holiness would then exercise on our political 
 powers, and might even find it opportune to 
 be elected President of the United States 
 through a majority of Roman Catholic voters, 
 and to have the term of office changed to life- 
 time, restoring on this continent the so-much 
 coveted temporal power, it having proven im- 
 possible to restore it in modern Rome. 
 
 Another method, that has been sucessf ully 
 applied for the purpose of producing in the 
 human mind faith in the teachings of the 
 
~ 91 
 
 Roman Church is that of causing the individ- 
 ual intended to be converted to persistently 
 pray for the divine grace of the true catholic 
 (Roman) faith. To this method of propagating 
 RomanCatholic faith, your Eminencehas devot- 
 ed a considerable part of the book, ' ' Our Chris- 
 tian Heritage". And indeed it may be said, 
 that this method is so efficacious, that the 
 very fact of its application under the instruc- 
 tions of the church or of her servants is al- 
 most a sure guarantee for success on the part 
 of the Church in producing the coveted 
 "faith". But is this then a real proof in 
 favor of the supernatural and of revelation, 
 or in favor of the teachings embraced by such 
 " faith"? The Southern man, whom your 
 Eminence persuaded to "pray" "0 God 
 give me light to see the truth, and strength to 
 follow it", and who "gave an earnest assur- 
 ance, that he would repeat this prayer day 
 after day with all the fervor of his heart" y 
 when he first informed your Eminence, "that 
 between him and me {your Eminence) there 
 was an impassable gulf lohich no reasoning 
 could bridge over" , was one of that numerous 
 class of humanity, that has advanced only 
 to a half way station in the search for truth, 
 and the wits of whom are not sharp enough 
 for dealing with an intellect so well trained as 
 
— 92 - 
 
 that of your Eminence or other priests of the 
 Roman Church. There existed indeed no im- 
 passable gulf between the sick man and the 
 Roman faith, because the man's admissions 
 indeed did away with the necessity of all rea- 
 soning on your Eminence's part. The man in- 
 advertently described correctly the situation 
 in stating that "na reasoning could (or be 
 needed to) bridge over" "the gulf". The 
 gulf proved to be one of sentiment only, but 
 none of intellect. The admissions as if they 
 were proven facts made by the man, li struck 
 down by a fatal malady" (surely not without 
 affecting both body and mind) of the "exist- 
 ence of a Supreme Being, the Author of Crea- 
 tion, the living Source of life", being "omnis- 
 cient' , "omnipotent", "infinitely good", and 
 oi"the reasonableness of " the assumption, 
 "that He will mercifully hearken to our peti- 
 tions" , all this left indeed no room for further 
 reasoning on your Eminence's part. The fact 
 of such admission being ascertained, the sick 
 man's intellect offered no resistance and as 
 " morphine" to the nerves so "prayer" had 
 only to be applied to the sick man's petty- 
 scruples or sickly inconsistency in order to 
 give his whole sick soul to faith. 
 
 He who prays under s icli a.sssum prions is 
 intellectually beaten beforehand, and prayer 
 
— 98 — 
 
 is to him but a mental soporiferous narcotic, 
 a quieter to the unsatisfied, unsettled, incon- 
 sistent mind. 
 
 If your Eminence describes this fatally sick 
 man's yearning (compare p. 39 of this book) 
 as i% the echo of the voice of humanity" , as 
 ik t7ie expression of a sentiment indelibly en- 
 graved o?i the soul of mankind", then this is 
 one of those illogical generalizations of petty 
 incidents into philosophical axicms of which 
 ''Our Christian Heritage," is so full on page 
 after page, that the discriminating intellect 
 draws from them the conclusion, that the 
 cause must be weak, in the support of which 
 so untenable arguments need be advanced. 
 
 When Tyndall proposed the test of prayer, 
 agnosticism stood as yet on the basis of sim- 
 ply refusing to assume what could not be 
 proven. The conclusion now arrived at, that 
 the supernatural be unprovable, this capstone 
 to the agnostic structure, had it then been 
 known, would have protected this savant 
 against becoming guilty of so inconsistent a 
 proposition as the test of prayer. 
 
 If the human infant rushes to the arms of 
 the stronger visible mother, this proves naught 
 with regard to the real existence of the super- 
 natural. If man finds comfort in illusion, 
 this has naught in common with proof for the 
 
— 94 — 
 
 existence of a divine supreme individuality 
 interfering in a sporadic arbitrary way in 
 favor of the one human being as against an- 
 other one, no prayer being imaginable almost, 
 to which there would not exist a simultaneous 
 and antagonistic counterpart. 
 
 To what abnormities the application of the 
 otherwise soothing taental drug "prayer" 
 can be carried, is fully illustrated in Asia by 
 the dancing Dervishes, in Europe and on this 
 continent by the drumming, chanting, vocifer- 
 ating and praying Salvation Army. 
 
 Both are fulfilling a mission, namely, to show 
 that fanatics constitute as yet an ingredient 
 in human society to be accounted for, and to 
 demonstrate the necessity of non-sectarian 
 education, so that our young citizens' minds 
 may first acquire the necessary strength and 
 discretion before being exposed to the in- 
 fluences of fanatical sectarians, through whom 
 strife and conflict alone can be imparted to 
 human society but neither happiness nor men- 
 tal peace. It is not probable, that amongst 
 the "busy restless class", prayer will prove 
 an efficacious method of propagating the 
 Roman faith, while amongst their wives and 
 daughters it is the custom to do the praying 
 for the family. 
 
 As human society is constituted, they find 
 
— 95 ■- 
 
 comfort in the practice, but it is not the rule, 
 that they pray for the enslavement of their 
 own or their husbands' and brothers' intellects. 
 
 Prayers in common by religious communi- 
 ties form in present society an important in- 
 gredient and contribution to the enjoyment of 
 life, a promoter of mutual tolerance and char- 
 ity and in consequence of human happiness, 
 and practiced and limited so as not to infringe 
 on the equal right of all, who would object to 
 them? 
 
 But to reasoning humanity it would never- 
 theless appear, that the exclusive use of the 
 ritualistic Latin language in all official prayer 
 and ceremonies, and the resulting characteri- 
 zation of our good Saxon English as less good 
 for prayer and as virtually too profane for ad- 
 dressing Divinity therein, as the Roman 
 Church has it, should turn the sympathies of 
 our citizens more to Protestantism than to the 
 predominantly Latin Church. 
 
 My next letter will more specifically consider 
 the eventual practical results of the Roman 
 Church propagating in the United States dur- 
 ing the coming century at the same rate as it 
 has during the past century. 
 

SIXTH LETTER. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church is a Serious 
 
 Danger in Itself to the Institutions 
 
 of the United States of 
 
 North America. 
 
 Tour Eminence 
 
 When all the facts be considered, as they ex- 
 ist, it wiJl appear, that the teachings and the 
 practices of the Roman Catholic Church are 
 absolutely and totally incompatible with the 
 free institutions of this republic, and that the 
 Roman Catholic Church as such is in revolt 
 against these institutions, and is by its very 
 nature and tendencies bound to destroy the 
 free institutions of this republic as speedily, as 
 it will control a majority of voters. 
 
 With a majority of voters adhering to Pro- 
 testantism the North American people would 
 continue to enjoy home rule and the fruits of 
 the great reform movements in the 16th and 
 17th centuries and of the 30 years war, while 
 
— 98 — 
 
 under a majority of catholics exercising sov- 
 ereignty in the United States, under the 
 authority of a Roman Pontifex, home-rule 
 would be as effectively dead, as it was before 
 our first American revolution. And so much 
 worse yet would foreign rule be, as it would 
 involve not our temporal wealth but the free- 
 dom of our consciences and convictions. 
 
 It is this civil and political side of the ques- 
 tion, which causes your Eminence's book to be 
 considered as a danger to the free institutions 
 of the North American people. And in conse- 
 quence there is sufficient reason, that it should 
 not be allowed to pass without a word of warn- 
 ing and contradiction, such as those from 
 the very reverently undersigned. 
 
 To show, that this be confessedly so on the 
 part of those in the fold of the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church, their following official declaration 
 prepared under the watchful eyes of the 
 hierarchy and issued by The first Congress of 
 Catholic Laymen in tlie United States is here set forth : 
 
 " The meeting of the first Congress of Catholic lay- 
 men in the United States to celebrate the hundredth 
 anniversary of the establishment of the American 
 hierarchy is an event of the greatest importance to 
 our Church and country. It would seem eminently 
 proper, that we, the laymen of the Church, should 
 meet and renew our ailegiance to the doctrine we pro- 
 fess; that we should show to our fellow- countrymen 
 
— 99 — 
 
 the true relations that exist between tiie Church (hat 
 we obey and love and the government of our choice; 
 that we should proclaim that unity of sentiment up- 
 on all subjects presented to us, which has ever been 
 the source of Catholic strength, and that in a spirit 
 of perfect charity towards every denomination we 
 should freely exchange our views in relation to all 
 matters, which effect us as members of the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 "In the first place, then, we rejoice at the mar- 
 velous development of our country, and regard with 
 just pride the part taken by Catholics in such develop- 
 ment. In the words of the pastoral issued by the 
 Archbishops and Bishops of the United States assem- 
 bled in the third Plenary Council of Baltimore, l we 
 claim to be acquainted both with the laws, institu- 
 tions and spirit of the Catholic Church, and with the 
 laws, institutions and spirit of our country, and we 
 emphatically declare that there is no antagonism be- 
 tween them. 7 
 
 " We repudiate with equal earnestness the asser- 
 tion,that we need to lay aside any of our devotedness 
 to our Church to be true Americans and the insinua- 
 tion, that we need to abate any of our love for our 
 country' s principles and institutions to be faithful Catho- 
 lics. We believe that our country's heroes were the 
 instruments of the God of nations in establishing their 
 home of freedom. To both the Almighty and to his 
 instruments in the work, we look with grateful rev- 
 erence, and to maintain the inheritance of freedom 
 which they have left us, should it ever-— which God 
 forbid — be imperiled, our Catholic citizens will be 
 
— 100 — 
 
 fonnd to stand forward as one man, ready to pledge 
 anew 'their lives, their fortunes and their sacred 
 honor.' 
 
 u We cannot, however, shut our eyes to the many 
 dangers that threaten the destruction of the social 
 fabric, upon which depend our peace, our liberty and 
 our free institutions. Although our wealth has in- 
 creased and prosperity abounds, our cities have mul- 
 tiplied and our States increased, we find under the 
 shadow of this system incipient pauperism, discon- 
 tented men, women and children without the benefits 
 of education, without advantages of religion, de- 
 prived of any share in that abundance or participa- 
 tion in the blessings, which through our free institu- 
 tions God Almighty has designed for the people of 
 ou£ land. 
 
 Remembering the distinction between Pagan and 
 Christian civilization as to the heed to be paid to the 
 right of the individual, we favor those means, 
 measures and systems, by which these blessings are 
 to be secured to all alike.* 
 
 "We recognize, next in importance to religion 
 itself, education as one of the chief factors in form- 
 ing the character of the individual, the virtue of the 
 citizen and promoting the advance of a true civiliza- 
 tion. Therefore we are committed to a sound popu- 
 lar education, which demands not only physical and 
 intellectual, but also the moral and religious train- 
 
 ? How does this correspond with the Hierachy's posi- 
 tion towards the * Anti-Poverty u movement and Rev. 
 McGlynn. The Author. 
 
— 101- 
 ing of our youth. As in the State schools, no provision 
 is made for 9 teaching religion, we must continue to sup- 
 port our own schools, colleges and universities already 
 established^ and multiply and perfect others, so that the 
 benefts of a Christian education may be brought within 
 the reach of every Catholic child within tliese United 
 States. 
 
 a We also recoguize among the three great educa- 
 tional agencies, besides the church and school, the 
 Christian home. l The root of the commonwealth is 
 the homes of the people. J Whatever imperils its 
 permanency, security and peace is a blow aimed not 
 only at individual rights, but it is an attempt to 
 subvert civil society and Christian civilization. 
 
 u Therefore we denounce the existence and de- 
 velopment of Mormonism and the tendency to mul- 
 tiply causes of divorces a vinculo as plague spots on 
 our civilization, a discredit to our Government, a 
 degradation of the female sex and a standing 
 menace to the sanctity of the marriage bond. We 
 likewise hold, that it is not sufficient for individual 
 Catholics to shun bad or dangerous societies, but 
 that they ought to take part in good and useful 
 ones. The importance of Catholic societies, and 
 the necessity of union and concert of action to ac- 
 complish aught, are manifest. These societies should 
 be organized on a religious and not on a race or na- 
 tional basis. We must always remember that the 
 Catholic Church knows no North or South, no East 
 or West, no race, no color. National societies, as 
 such, have no place in the Church in this country, but, 
 
_ 102 _■ 
 
 like this Congress iUelf, they should be Catholic and 
 American." 
 
 "We commend the plan and form of the St. Vin- 
 cent de Paul Society as a typical Catholic society. 
 It is impossible to enumerate all the societies, whose 
 labors have done so much in the past to succor the 
 poor and alleviate human misery, and it must there- 
 fore be left to individual action to select the field,in 
 which each shall aid in religious and charitable work. 
 As our young men, however, are the hope of the 
 future, we especially commend them to the support 
 and encouragement of Catholics. As these were com- 
 mended in a special manner by the Plenary Council, 
 we recommend the establishment of these societies 
 throughout the land and urge upon the laity the im- 
 portance of supporting them by every means with- 
 in their power. We recommend the extension of 
 societies designed to assist the widows and children 
 of deceased members, societies for the relief of the 
 poor and distressed, not forgetting measures tend- 
 ing to improve the condition of inmates of our penal 
 institutions. 
 
 " Another danger which menaces our republic is 
 the constant conflict between capital and labor. 
 We, therefore, at all times must view with feelings of 
 regret and alarm any antagonism existing between 
 them, because thereby society itself is imperiled. 
 With the Church, we condemn Nihilism, Socialism 
 and Communism, and we equally condemn the 
 heartless greed of capital. The remedy must be 
 Bought in the mediation of the Church through her 
 action on the individual conscience and thereby on 
 
— 103 — 
 
 society, teaching each its respective duties as well 
 as rights : and in such civil enactments as have been 
 rendered necessary by these altered conditions. * As 
 stated by His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, ' labor 
 has its sacred rights as well as its dignity. 7 Para- 
 mount among the rights of the laboring classes is 
 their privilege to organize or to form themselves 
 into societies for their mutual protection and bene- 
 fit. In honoring and upholding labor the nation 
 is strengthening its own hands as well as paying a 
 tribute to worth, for a contented and happy work- 
 ing class is the best safeguard of the Bepublic.' n 
 
 "We disapprove of the employment of very 
 young minors — whether male or female — in factories 
 as tending to dwarf and retard the true development 
 of the wage-earners of the future. We pledge our- 
 selves to co-operate with the clergy in discussing 
 and in solving those great economic, educational and 
 social questions which effect the interests and well- 
 being of the church, the country and society at 
 large. " 
 
 "We respectfully protest against any change in the 
 policy of the Government in the matter of the educa- 
 tion of the Indians, by which they will be deprived 
 of Christian teaching. ■ That the amelioration and 
 promation of the physical and moral culture of the 
 negro race is a subject of the utmost concern, and 
 we pledge ourselves to assist our clergy in all ways 
 tending to effect any improvement in their condi- 
 tion. 
 
 "We are in favor of Catholics taking greater part 
 than they have hitherto taken in general philan- 
 
— 104 — 
 
 thropic and reformatory movements. The obliga- 
 tion to help the needy and to instruct the ignorant 
 is not limited to the needy and ignorant of our own 
 communion, but we are concerned, both as Catholics 
 and Americans, in the reformation of all the criminals 
 and the support of all the poor in the country. By 
 mingling more in such works of National virtue as 
 our non-Catholic fellow-citizens are engaged in and 
 taking our proper share jn the management of pris- 
 ons and hospitals we might exert a Catholic influence 
 outside of our own body, make ourselves better 
 known and infuse into those good works something 
 of supernatural charity, and at the same time that 
 we are solacing the unfortunate and reforming the 
 erring; and we should be able to insist on Catholic 
 inmates being freely ministered to by their own 
 clergy. We must assert and secure the right of 
 conscience of Catholics in all institutions under pub- 
 lic control. 
 
 " There are many other Christian issues in which 
 Catholics could come together with non- Catholics and 
 shape civil legislation for the public weal. In spite 
 of rebuff and injustice and overlooking zealotry we 
 should seek alliance with non-Catholics for proper 
 Sunday observance. Without going over to the Ju- 
 daic Sabbath we can bring the masses over to the 
 moderation of the Christian Sunday. To effect this 
 we must set our faces sternly against the sale of 
 intoxicating beverages on Sunday. The corrupting 
 influence of saloons in politics, the crime and pauper- 
 ism resulting from excessive drinking. require legisla- 
 tive restriction which we can aid in procuring by join- 
 
 
 
— 105- 
 ing our influence with that of the other enemies of 
 intemperance. Let us resolve that drunkenness 
 shall be made odious and give practical encourage- 
 ment and support to Catholic temperance societies. 
 We favor the passage and enforcement of laws rigidly 
 closing saloons on Sunday and forbidding the sale of 
 liquors to minors and intoxicated persons. 
 
 Efforts should be made to promote Catholic read- 
 ing. It is our duty to support liberally good Catho- 
 lic journals and books and acquaint ourselves with 
 Catholic doctrine and opinion on the important 
 questions constantly coming to the front and demand- 
 ing right answers and just practical solutions. 
 There are comparatively few Catholics who cannot 
 afford the cost of a Catholic journal or who do not 
 spend more for a story paper or a novel than the 
 price of one. 
 
 "We not only recommend Catholics to subscribe 
 more generally for Catholic periodicals, quarterly, 
 monthly or weekly, but look with eagerness for the 
 establishment of daily Catholic newspapers in our 
 large cities and a Catholic associated press agency. 
 If our Catholic literature is not equal to the standard 
 by which we measure it, this is due, at least in part, 
 to the slight encouragement now given to Catholic 
 writers of the better type. If the best Catholic 
 books were extensively purchased and read, more 
 would be written, which we should be proud of. We 
 recommend, therefore, the work of Catholic circulat- 
 ing libraries and reading circles and also efforts to 
 have the best Catholic books and periodicals intro- 
 duced into public libraries. But we do not call all 
 
— ioe — 
 
 books Catholic that are written by Catholics, nor a 
 journal which is Catholic on one page and infidel or 
 immoral on another. 
 
 " As fast as practicable we hope for the introduc- 
 tion of proper church music in all our churches 
 where other music is now heard. The music should 
 help devotion at the divine service, and not be such 
 as tends to divert the mind from heavenly thoughts.* 
 Efforts should be made to have the congregation join 
 in the singing — a Catholic custom formerly, but 
 practised in only a few churches nowadays. 
 
 " We cannot conclude without recording our sol- 
 emn conviction that the absolute freedom of the Holy 
 See is equally indispensable to the peace of the 
 Church and the welfare of mankind. We demand 
 in the name of humanity and justice that this free- 
 dom be scrupulously respected by all secular govern- 
 ments. We protest against the assumption by any 
 such government of a right to affect the interests of 
 control the action of our Holy Father by any form of 
 legislation or other public act to which his full appro- 
 bation has not been previously given, and we pledge 
 to Leo XIII., the worthy Pontiff, to whose hands 
 Almighty God has committed the helm of Peter's 
 barkf amid the tempests of this stormy age, the loyal 
 
 * This properly understood, though, must be read be- 
 tween lines means the expulsion from all connection with 
 religious exercises of all music except the so-called Grego- 
 rian, thus anathematising, Hay den, Beethoven and the 
 like. [The Author.] 
 
 t The main assistant in the steering of St. Peter's bark 
 is the College of Cardinals. Its composition is one of the 
 
— 107 — 
 
 sympathy and unstinted aid of all his spiritual child- 
 ren in vindicating that perfect liberty which he 
 justly claims as his sacred and inalienable right ". 
 
 The foregoing manifesto? s main character- 
 istic is precisely expressed by the French 
 proverb: Qui s' excuse s' accuse. (He who 
 excuses himself involuntarily accuses him- 
 self). Would any of the protestant sects find 
 it necessary to declare: " That there is no 
 antagonism between laws, institutions and 
 spirit of the Church on the one hand and of 
 this country on the other." 
 
 It does appear to all non-Roman Catholics, 
 that such antagonism indeed does exist, and 
 that the above sweeping assertion is bluntly 
 contradicted by other parts of the same man- 
 ifesto. The cutting loose and abjuration from 
 all dependence and obedience to foreign poten- 
 tates is a first condition to citizenship of these 
 United States of North America. In contrast 
 therewith is contained and prominently ex- 
 
 best evidences of the fact, that to the Roman Church the 
 nearest to Rome has always appeared to be the most reli- 
 able in controversion of any cosmopolitan character, 
 which she is well inclined to assume. On the American 
 (N. & S ) continent there are fifty million Roman Catholics 
 Ontario and Canada not included. They are represented 
 by two Cardinals. Small Italy has about half that num- 
 ber of Roman Catholics but is represented by thirty-two 
 Cardinals. — [The Author]. 
 
— 108 — 
 
 pressed in the hereabove copied official procla- 
 mation of the Catholic Laymen (voters) of the 
 United States, the voluntary declaration, that 
 these Laymen do obey the church, that they love 
 it, while the government of the United States 
 is alluded to as the government of their (prac- 
 tical) choice. 
 
 Again while it is declared, that there be no 
 antagonism between the laws, institutions 
 and spirit of the Catholic Church on the one 
 hand and of this country on the other, the 
 manifesto declares in contradiction thereto the 
 intention to destroy our institution of non- 
 sectarian public schools. 
 
 As shown in the beginning of my fifth letter 
 a government just to all has indeed no other 
 choice but to be unsectarian in all its laws and 
 practices. If the government of the United 
 States is practically unloyal to this first prin- 
 ciple of a just government by giving practical 
 preference to protestant clergymen as against 
 those of other confessions, as against ignoring 
 them all, then this failing in one point though 
 an encouragement for Roman Catholics for 
 further infringement on the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of our institutions, can form no justifi- 
 cation therefore. 
 
 But the difference as between the two is, 
 that the infringement on the part of protestant- 
 
— 109 — 
 
 ism is one of petty practice not involving a fun- 
 damental principle and being a concession to 
 the majority's still existing intellectual bond- 
 age under orthodoxism; while Romanism 
 advances claims being incompatible with the 
 fundamental principles of our government. 
 
 Be it assumed for a moment, that the Roman 
 Catholic Church after a successful propagation 
 amongst the busy ones ^having neither inclina- 
 tion nor time to consider the question of 
 creed, with the thoroughness it evidently de- 
 serves, or amongst the very class your Emi- 
 nence's address (book) is directed to — should 
 have become possessed of a majority of voters 
 in the United States.* 
 
 Are they not organized for election pur- 
 poses more thoroughly than any other polit- 
 
 * When papacy first organized the N. A. Hierarchy, 
 the official statistics furnished, showed a Roman Catho- 
 lic population of 44,500. 
 
 The present Roman Catholic population of the United 
 States (Hoffman's Catholic Directory for 1890} is esti- 
 mated at 8,301,367 which shows an increase in 100 years 
 at the rate of 1:186.5. 
 
 It so happened, that in the year 1790 also the first 
 general census was taken in the United States of North 
 America showing then a population of 3,929,214. The 
 present population, being estimated at 60,000,000 there 
 has been an increase of the total population in the same 
 100 years at the rate only of 1:15.27. 
 
 Therefore the increase of the Roman Church was due 
 to increase in population in general for only one third 
 
— 110 — 
 
 ical body on this continent ? Can there be a 
 question as to what practical turn the politi- 
 cal action of this organization would take, even 
 in case the appearance of independent nomin- 
 ations be preserved? Obedience to the Church 
 must govern such nominations as often, as any 
 question relating to the interests of the Church 
 be at issue. And the Church will never fail 
 to give her order and command, there being 
 presumably always a question at issue, in which 
 the church as well as the Catholic conscience 
 is involved, as for instance the question of 
 sectarian or non-sectarian public schools — of 
 the temporal possessions and civil sovereignty 
 of the pope, the suppression or non-suppress- 
 ion by the civil power of educational institu- 
 tions founded by freethinkers or agnostics, 
 (your Eminence waiving the later question ev- 
 idently only for the present) — the suppression 
 
 of the total, while two thirds of her increase was due to 
 proselytes from other faith communities joining the 
 church. A calculation based on these statistical facts 
 would also make it appear, that at the same proportion- 
 ate increase of both the nation and the Roman Catholics 
 the next 60 years would give to the Roman Church a 
 majority of the population and of the proportionate vot- 
 ing power, thus rendering it probable, that between 1950 
 and 2000 all branches of our general Government (Con- 
 gress, Judiciary and Executive), would be in the hands of 
 the Roman Catholics and of t\\e Rpman Pontifex in con- 
 sequence, 
 
 
in the public press of what to the Roman 
 Church is "blasphemy" only, but which in 
 reality is the scientific discussion of topics, 
 in which humanity at large is deeply, 
 intensly interested, and about which it has a 
 full natural right to be informed and disa- 
 bused — the educating of Indian tribes so as to 
 become proselytes of the Roman Church and 
 in consequence Roman voting citizens — the 
 bestowing of voting power on women, it be- 
 ing assumed, that the female mind when 
 trained in sectarian educational institutes (by 
 nuns) is apt to be directed more by sentiment 
 than by intellect and in consequence to be sub- 
 ject to Church influences to a higher degree 
 than men. 
 
 An invasion and conquest of Canada pre- 
 tendedly in the interest of freedom but really 
 for the purpose of increasing the Roman 
 Catholic voting power would under the rule 
 of a Roman Catholic majority of voters and 
 of their elected representatives with the obe- 
 dience of all to the Roman Pontifex be with- 
 in probability. 
 
 Were the sovereign people of the United 
 States, electing the instruments of both the 
 legislative and executive power, to become a 
 people of Roman Catholics,all our institutions 
 would soon be shaped in accordance with the 
 
— 112 — 
 
 spirit of the Roman Church. And what has 
 this spirit proven to be? 
 
 The recent declaration of the dogma of the 
 infallibility of the Roman Pontifex when 
 speaking ex cathedra (officially)creates the ap- 
 pearance of a tendency toward absolutism. At 
 all events all power in the government of the 
 church has been taken away from the people 
 at large, and its hands, although they are ex- 
 pected to be open at all times for largely con- 
 tributing to the needs of the Church and of 
 the clergy, are thoroughly manacled by the 
 church law, that all property intended for 
 religious or parish purposes cannot be 
 held by the single communities themselves, 
 but must be transferred to the hierarchical 
 organization, before any priest of the Church 
 may there officiate. Laymen have no longer 
 the power of electing the priast officia- 
 ting to their religious requirements, the elect- 
 ion of teachers in their schools is under the 
 dictation and approval of priestdom, and pref- 
 erence is given to men and women, the intellect 
 of whom has been warped to the effect, that 
 they believe exclusion from contact with the 
 world will befit them better for preparing our 
 children for their travel on the high road of 
 busy life, and whose vow of celibacy and ex- 
 clusion from legitimate intercourse with the 
 

 — 113 
 
 other sex constitutes them as a permanent 
 danger to public morals. 
 
 Therefore there can be no reasonable doubt, 
 but that any legislative assembly with a ma- 
 jority of Catholic members, obeying to the 
 commands of the Roman Church, as given 
 by her acknowledged infallible represen- 
 tative, the Roman pope, — would destroy the 
 institution of non-sectarian public schools, 
 would spend the public moneys for the sup- 
 port of Roman Catholic schools, would be pre- 
 vented in their consciences from appropriating 
 moneys to the use of schools of heretics. 
 
 And the Catholic executive power of the 
 United States would be in conscience held to 
 propagate the influence and power of the 
 Roman Church in our political institutions by 
 absorbing preferably catholic Canada, Mex- 
 ico and Cuba, to aid in the re-establishment of 
 the temporal power of the Roman pontifex,* 
 
 **The views of Roman Catholics as to the temporal power 
 of heir Pontifex is clearly set forth in a speech made to 
 the Congress of Roman Catholics at Baltimore. 
 
 Charles J. Bonaparte eloquently discussed "The Inde- 
 pendence of the Holy See," the necessity for which he en- 
 thusiastically upheld. He gave a vivid sketch of the 
 changing conditions from the time of Charlemagne to the 
 moment of the Italian Government's forcible deprivation 
 of Pius IX. of all temporal authority, and the enactment of 
 the "Law of Guarantees" whereby the Italian Parliament 
 
— 114 — 
 
 though such action might involve the United 
 States in war, with half of the European 
 powers. All At Majorem Dei Qloriam, 
 
 professed to guard the papal rights. The vital part of the 
 paper was the conclusion, which was substantially as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "It has been suggested, that the more important provis- 
 ions of the 'Law of Guarantees' might be embodied in a 
 treaty between all the great powers, and thus obtain an 
 international sanction. I think this suggestion looks in 
 the right direction. One day the independence of the Holy 
 See may perhaps be warranted by diplomacy, but, when it 
 affords a solution for this great problem diplomacy, will be 
 the mouthpiece of a practically unanimous opinion 
 throughout the Catholic, I may say the whole Christian 
 world; a public opinion which Italians will respect, not so 
 much because they fear as because they share it. A real 
 solution will never be found in bargains between Kings 
 and Cabinets nor in the accidents of wars or revolutions. 
 The ultimate sanction for the liberty of the Holy See must 
 be neither military force nor the words of compacts, how- 
 ever solemn, but the universal conviction among good 
 men of all countries, that to violate it would be to wrong 
 mankind. 
 
 "Catholics do less than their duty, if they fail to say, and 
 to say so loudly and plainly, that no one can even pretend 
 to mistake their meaning, that the Holy See has been and 
 is gravely wronged; that against this wrong they tem- 
 perately but firmly protest, and will protest so long, as it 
 remains unrighted; that while the freedom of the Holy See 
 is in jeopardy the Church is not at peace; and that the 
 Sovereign Pontiff,in vindicating this freedom, not as a priv- 
 ilege to be given or withheld by any earthly power, but as 
 an inalienable right embraced in his divine commission, 
 has and will ever have the unwavering support of all his 
 spiritual children". 
 
— 115 — 
 
 though our freedom of conscience and our 
 equality before the law and in the exercise of 
 our political rights should be destroyed, and 
 i unless a new, more bitter, more bloody war for 
 freedom of conscience be fought once more, 
 than the history of the human race has seen 
 before. 
 
 Agnostics cannot accept the Puritan doc- 
 trine shared in equally by all orthodoxism 
 (Catholic or Protestant) as described by Dr. 
 Lyman Abbot (Plymouth Church, Brooklyn) 
 of our civil government being a "divine insti- 
 tution based not upon the divine right of Icings 
 but upon the divine right of 'the people, allow- 
 ing only church members to take part in po- 
 litical affairs". Nevertheless Agnostics do 
 accept and adhere to the exhortation made by 
 the same orator (December 29, 1889): 
 
 "Go into politics, and if you have a con- 
 1 science, carry it with you. And go into party 
 politics. If you believe that taxation should 
 be limited to the expenses of the Government, 
 and that those expenses should be only those 
 incurred in the protection of life and property, 
 taJce your stand fairly and honestly as a Dem- 
 ocrat. If you believe that the Government 
 should protect and promote industry by a 
 system of taxation, then be a Republican. 
 But be one thing or the other^ and of all 
 
— 116 — 
 
 things do not for the sake of your manhood 
 let the shameful words pass your lips: ' I 
 dortt take any interest in polities' ". 
 
 And they adhere to the very true dictum of 
 Grover Cleveland: "An educated man has 
 certainly no excuse for indifference (10th An- 
 nual Banquet Cornell University Club, N. Y). 
 
 And it is claimed, that this question as to 
 the Roman Catholic Church being a serious 
 danger in itself to the free institutions of the 
 United States of North America, and to the 
 equal rights of its citizens, is one deserving 
 serious attention of all sincere adherents to 
 the principles of Democracy in the larger 
 meaning of the word. 
 
 If thus it has been shown, that the Roman 
 Catholic Church be a danger to the freedom of 
 conscience of American citizens and to the non- 
 sectarian character of the government of the 
 North American Union and States, we may 
 also for a moment, consider the position, the 
 Roman Church assumes towards the econom- 
 ical progress of the North American people. 
 
 The danger seen in the conflict between 
 capital and labor is met with the declara- 
 tion, that such antagonism between the two 
 is viewed with regret and alarm, but all 
 remedies so far opposed are condemned and 
 the mediation alone of the Roman Church 
 
. —117 — 
 
 between the two is declared as a possible 
 remedy, and what is recommended in the shape 
 of societies has the evident tendency to bring 
 the laymen into a closer contact with the cler- 
 gy and to intensify their subjection to the 
 clergy and the church. 
 
 Since Mr. Bellamy has done the enormously 
 meritorious act of giving and introducing anew 
 name for a science and lawful programme, which 
 under its old name (thanks to the monarchical 
 European press and its apish followers on this 
 continent) had become a fright for big Ameri- 
 can children, — Americans have begun to un- 
 derstand, that the organization of a people for 
 economical purposes and with the object of 
 increasing general happiness can be made and 
 should be made the subject matter of scien- 
 tific research and of practical legislation. 
 But the Roman Church does want neither 
 such research nor such legislation and the 
 manifesto of its American followers condemns 
 all of it under the indefinite term of " Social- 
 ism". It is no longer u Socialism ", with 
 which the big children can be sent to their 
 bed of thoughtlessness, but it is "Nationalism", 
 with which the American people will have to 
 set itself right sooner or later. 
 
 It should not be overlooked in connection 
 with the Roman Church's economical views, 
 
— 118 — 
 
 that in the earlier stages of Christianity the 
 sect was essentially a communistic fraternity, 
 that in its later development community of 
 ownership and property was narrowed down to 
 a caste of selected ones, the so-called religious 
 orders. 
 
 But while these favored children of the 
 Roman Church reject still at this date indi- 
 vidual ownership either of their lawful inher- 
 itance or of the product of their labors, they 
 as a community practice the accumulation of 
 temporal wealth, as if this were one of the 
 chief objects of their existence, and to such 
 an extent, that some European States were 
 forced into defensive legislation against such 
 accumulation of real property in a "dead 
 hand", as such ownership has been named. 
 
 The acquisition of temporal power and of 
 wealth, since the day when Pepin le Bref 
 gave a piece torn off from the Byzantine Em- 
 pire to the Bishop of Rome, who made it the 
 fundamental stone, on which the papal tem- 
 poral power was built — has appeared as the 
 chief practical function of the Roman Church 
 on the face of the earth. And to this purpose 
 has the main activity of her servants been di- 
 rected, a fact of which the enormous wealth 
 bears evidence, which atpresentis held tightly 
 in the hands of the Church, notwithstanding 
 
— 119- 
 
 monarchical greed or republican self protection 
 has from time to time stripped her of her 
 superfluities. 
 
 To the Roman Church there are at the end 
 of the nineteenth century but two ways 
 left, for keeping its hold on the masses 
 and for propagating its faith, namely either 
 poorness and consequent ignorance of the 
 masses or the educated fanatism and con- 
 sequent blindfolding of the intellecually half- 
 trained. 
 
 Research for the fundamental principles, 
 on which human society should be organized, 
 in order to procure all of the individual happi- 
 ness obtainable within natural limits, and 
 consequent fundamental legislation is abhor- 
 rent to the instincts of the Roman Church, 
 because such research and such happi- 
 ness must propagate opportunity for and 
 knowledge itself and thus alienate the masses 
 from Church discipline. 
 
 Hence the general anathema pronounced 
 against all but " such civil enactments, as 
 have been rendered necessary by these altered 
 conditions" . 
 
 And the pledge : To co-operate with the 
 clergy in discussing and in solving those 
 great economical, educational and social ques- 
 tions, which affect the interests and well being 
 
— 120 — 
 
 of the church, (first) the country (next) and 
 society (last) at large", clearly expresses the 
 programme of no other discussion and solu- 
 tion but under the control of the clergy, all 
 of which is totally un-American; the Amer- 
 ican people having so far emancipated as to 
 take care of its social and political affairs 
 without the tutelage of the clergy 
 
 From all this it is evident, that the Roman 
 Church will act as a hindrance against all 
 economical legislation and organization of 
 and for the people at large and for its in- 
 creased happiness, by which not its own inter- 
 est be fostered in the first place. 
 
 ; 
 
nri r. 
 
 SEVENTH LETTER. 
 
 What Creed the American Citizen 
 Should Select. 
 
 Tour Eminence ; 
 
 That coming generations should also enjoy 
 the boon and glory of the free institutions of 
 this great republic, to the shores of which mil- 
 lions have fled from oppression, hoping to find 
 freedom of conscience and individual liberty 
 in matters of conviction and belief, this all de- 
 pends on the Roman Catholic Church never 
 obtaining a majority of votes in the Republic. 
 
 With the acquirements in knowledge and 
 science at the present time we stand in a posi- 
 tion, where, if we desire to select and accept 
 any creed by our free volition and inclination 
 and without compulsion and with the full 
 knowledge, that true religiosity be monopo- 
 lized by no creed on the one hand and be con- 
 ditional to none on the other, it is proper, that 
 in such selection, we should as citizens of this 
 
— 122 — 
 
 nation, consider besides the probable result of 
 such selection on tlie welfare of ourselves in- 
 dividually, the result also, as far as the nation 
 at large be concerned. 
 
 In the preceding letter I have shown the 
 probable result of a majority of voters of the 
 United States of North America becoming 
 Roman Catholics. But personal, individual 
 reasons point in the same direction concerning 
 the selection of the community we should join 
 if any. 
 
 It may be conceded, that to those, who ac- 
 cept the so-called divine revelations, as they 
 are described in the so-called Book of Books, 
 and who accept the logics of facts, as there 
 described and stated, the Roman Church may 
 appear more acceptable than other religious 
 communities, because it carries these accepted 
 revelations, these described facts and their 
 logical sequences to the severest conclusions. 
 
 But, if appearing thus most acceptable to 
 many, it also is apt in carrying these funda- 
 mental conditions to their utmost conse- 
 quences, to demonstrate best their absurdity 
 under scientific criticism. 
 
 What does it mean in your Eminence's 
 mouth to claim that in the souls of agnostics 
 the foundation of natural truth has been under- 
 mined? (compare p. 19), while their entire en- 
 
— 123 — 
 
 deavors are directed towards the establishment 
 of natural truth, and while all the Roman 
 Church's endeavors are directed towards per- 
 verting the human mind from such natural 
 truth and substituting therefore pretensions in 
 the guise of "Knowledge of Supernatural Re- 
 ligior£\ for which all foundation in facts is 
 lacking, which is beyond human faculty of 
 ascertaining, and which has practically resulted 
 in enlisting humanity in fanatism and intoler- 
 ance as against itself and its own happiness. 
 
 Does a church, the chief representative of 
 which on this continent resorts to such feats 
 of intellectual contortion, recommend itself to 
 the straightforward American mind % 
 
 Enough has been shown in the preceding 
 pages to demonstrate to the honest searcher 
 for facts and truth, that the claims of the Ro- 
 man Church of being the exclusively correct 
 expounder of religious truth have remained 
 without acceptable proof. And if not accepta- 
 ble on this account, is it acceptable as a con- 
 tributor to human happiness % 
 
 It cannot be contributive to happiness to be- 
 long to a church, which will refuse to bury 
 the children at the side of their parents, un- 
 less to the last of their breathing they have con- 
 fessed to the creed and to the practices of the 
 Church,have loved not what the Church hates, 
 
— 124 — 
 
 a church, which carries into modern times all the 
 barbarian instincts of intolerance, as they have 
 marked its history from the very time, it 
 ceased to be itself oppressed and to strive for 
 liberty of conscience, and when it developed 
 into a power and an oppressor itself. 
 
 If we select to join a religious community, 
 it will be better to join one, where as little as 
 possible of dogma, and as much as possible 
 of mutual charity be preached, and to shun 
 a community, where our children's brains will 
 be stuffed from the first teachings, they listen 
 to, with horrible pictures of purgatory, and 
 temporal tormentation in after life, which 
 may be bought off with money on the part of 
 those being left behind to be bestowed on the 
 direct worldly benefit of its priestdom, and 
 of eternal tormentation, as the result of not 
 accepting all the teachings, as the Roman 
 Church upholds them, and from time to time 
 expounds them, such as the infallibility of 
 the one mortal, the Pontifex, amongst all 
 other mortals, and such as the dogma of Mary, 
 both conceiving as a virgin and being con- 
 ceived herself immaculately, that is in some 
 different way from the manner, in which all 
 other human beings are conceived, all the 
 rest of humanity being assumed to be endowed 
 from their very conception not only with all 
 
— 135 — 
 
 the discrepancies and weaknesses of human 
 nature but besides with a kind of supernat- 
 ural inheritance of a sin committed by Adam 
 and Eve, when they, as the story is told by the 
 author of the book "Genesis", ate the fruit 
 from the tree of knowledge, which we are told 
 was then already forbidden, as priestdomisapt 
 to forbid it to-day, except when taken for the 
 purpose of befitting to the acceptance of their 
 teachings, and by which fruit,although Adam 
 did not die the very day he ate it, as he had 
 been specifically told, that he would die, his 
 eyes were opened. It certainly is our fault, 
 if at this late date we do not judge with 
 opened eyes. 
 
 It will be better to shun a community, where 
 the human intellect is expected to eradicate 
 its own conclusions, and to substitute them by 
 the acceptance of incredible assertions, such 
 as the bible is claimed to make them and as the 
 Roman Church makes them, such as to see and 
 eat a wafer and believe to have seen and eaten 
 a piece of a humanized tripartite interest in the 
 Almighty Divinity and World Creator Him- 
 self. 
 
 The sole fact, that it is a practice of the Ro- 
 man Catholic church, to have the wives and 
 daughters of Catholic citizens, enter the goUt 
 fessionalof a man, though he be a clergyman, 
 
— 126 — 
 
 and there to have them lay open and have dis- 
 cussed the secrets of their hearts and bodies, 
 should deter every true American man, bearing 
 respect to the women of his race, from joining 
 the Roman Catholic Church, not to speak of 
 the presumption as between man and man, 
 that it requires the instrumentality of one, 
 to bring about divine forgiveness for another. 
 Americans as a rule are too proud and too 
 busy to find time for confessing their sins into 
 the ears of another man. 
 
 The Roman Catholic creed and church does 
 not contribute to increasing the happiness of 
 the nation or the citizen, therefore your 
 Eminence not having made good the asser- 
 tion (page 10) concerning us, that Christian- 
 ity, in special in its Roman Catholic form, be 
 profitable for all things, having the promise 
 of the life, that now is as well as of that, 
 which is to come, many (including the rever- 
 ently undersigned) will respectfully decline 
 being drawn into the folds of the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 Very Respectfully 
 
 Mich. De GUvarelle. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 
 
 Page, 
 
 Abbott, Dr. Lyman 
 
 115 
 
 Absolutism 
 
 V 10 
 
 Absurdities in Scriptures 
 
 16 
 
 Accusations 
 
 75 
 
 Admiration 
 
 30 
 
 Age, bustling 
 
 9 
 
 Agnosco 
 
 42 
 
 Agnosticism 
 
 30, 34 
 
 Agnostics, avowed enemies of Christianity 
 
 15 
 
 a confessions 
 
 26 
 
 11 corrupted 
 
 15 
 
 u deny the Sovereign ruler 
 
 15 
 
 si description of 
 
 15, 29 
 
 " earn a cheap reputation 
 
 15 
 
 •« feasting with fear 
 
 15 
 
 «* glory in their infidelity 
 
 15 
 
 u insist on knowing everything 
 
 15 
 
 " like dumb beasts 
 
 15 
 
 il to be ignored 
 
 24 
 
 u to be met on narrow ground 
 
 24 
 
 11 to, darkness reserved forever 
 
 16 
 
 11 trade in blasphemy 
 
 15 
 
 " claiming not to know 
 
 42 
 
 u answer 
 
 64 
 
 " say 
 
 66 
 
 " will not accept any stories 
 
 16 
 
 11 will not learn 
 
 15 
 
 Aggression by the Roman Church 
 
 10 
 
 Albigenses 
 
 79 
 
 Ambition, individual 
 
 29 
 
 A. M. D. G. 
 
 79 
 
 Anathema 
 
 12 
 
 Ancestors 
 
 44 
 
 Anniversary, 100th of Hierarchy 
 
 9 
 
 Antagonism 
 
 99, 107 
 
 Anti-Slavery Championship 
 
 89 
 
 Apes, anthropoid 
 
 63 
 
 Architect of the temple of nature 
 
 47 
 
 Artist 
 
 47 
 
— 128 
 
 Asia minor 
 
 
 52 
 
 Astronomy 
 
 57, 
 
 59 
 
 11 Kepler's Epitome of 
 
 
 57 
 
 Assertion, false 
 
 
 27 
 
 Assumption, as to what be good 
 (t of influence 
 
 
 21 
 12 
 
 Atheists 
 
 
 65 
 
 Atmosphere of faith 
 
 
 18 
 
 Austria 
 
 
 51 
 
 Author, divine, of sacred volume 
 
 
 55 
 
 Author invisible, clearly seen 
 Authority claim of, and of ignorance 
 
 
 47 
 
 
 43 
 
 Authority 12, 21, 
 
 28, 
 
 58 
 
 " civil 
 
 
 13 
 
 Authors, ecclesiastical 
 
 
 17 
 
 Authorship, human 
 Axioms, Philosophical 
 
 Ball set a rolling 
 
 
 62 
 
 
 93 
 
 
 60 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 
 11 
 
 Being, spiritual 
 ,l Supreme 
 
 37, 
 
 20 
 
 47 
 
 Beliefs and creeds 
 
 
 43 
 
 Bellamy 
 
 
 117 
 
 Beverages, Intoxicating 
 Bible 
 " readings 
 
 
 104 
 56 
 
 
 Kr\f 
 
 81 
 
 Birds 
 
 
 62 
 
 Blasphemy to let divinity reveal arrant nonsense 
 
 
 49 
 
 Blasphemy, agnostics accused of trading in 
 
 15, 
 
 27 
 
 Blasphemy, if a possible thing 
 
 Blasphemy, the Scientific Discussion of Topic 
 
 
 49 
 
 8, 
 
 
 Humanity is interested in 
 
 
 111 
 
 Blood, shedding of . 
 
 
 79 
 
 Body, human 
 
 
 41 
 
 Bonaparte, Chas. J., on Indepence of the Holy Sea 
 Bondage 
 
 
 113 
 
 
 24 
 
 Boston, Watchman 
 
 
 83 
 
 Brewster, Sir D. B. 
 
 
 57 
 
 Bridge between Supernaturalism and Naturalism 
 Buddhism 
 
 
 42 
 
 21, 
 
 22 
 
 Buddhist 
 
 
 22 
 
 Byzantine Empire 
 
 
 118 
 
 Canada 
 
 
 83 
 
 Catholics, Number of, in U. S. 
 
 
 109 
 
— 190 — 
 
 Capability of senses 45 
 
 " of submission 40 
 
 ■ 4 of tradition 27 
 
 Capital and Labor 1 02 
 
 Captatio benevolentiae 18 
 Caricaturing doctrine and 
 
 Cathedra, ex 12 
 
 Cause, natural 39, 45 
 
 Catholics, Roman 52 
 
 u Greek 52 
 
 Centuries 16th, 17th 97 
 
 Cessation of organic activity 41 
 
 Charlemagne 118 
 
 Christ, divine claims of 20 
 
 Christianity 22 
 
 ■ ' Justice done to 31 
 
 u its place in history 52 
 
 Christians 27 
 
 Church Music 106 
 
 Churches falling in 83 
 
 Church, Roman 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 
 
 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, etc 
 
 * l Roman, to settle scientific questions 56 
 
 Circumstances, in which the Scriptures were written 16 
 
 Civilization, Pagan and Christian 100 
 
 Class, The busy restless 14, 17 
 
 " estranged to Christianity 18 
 
 Clergy, Protestant 17 
 
 •■■•' Roman Catholic 27 
 
 Cleveland, Grover 116 
 
 Commandments 20 
 
 Communication from the Supernatural 44 
 
 Communism 102, 118 
 
 Comparison 43 
 
 Composer, Divine, of Spherical Music 47 
 
 Conceptions, Mental 20 
 
 Conduct, Individual 82 
 
 Confessing 80 
 
 Confession of Ignorance 43 
 
 Conflict with Roman Creed 28 
 
 Confucians 52 
 
 Conscience, Freedom of 12 
 
 " Voice of God 20 
 
 Consciousness, 43 
 
 " To account for 42 
 
 Contradictions in Scriptures 16 
 
 Copernicus 57 
 
 Courtesy 29 
 
I 
 
 — 130 — 
 
 Court of reason 21 
 
 Cowardice, Moral 18 
 
 Creation 49, 59 
 
 " of N. A. Hierarchy 9 
 
 Creator of the Universe 37 
 
 Creeds 32, 43 
 
 " Human, Originate 46 
 
 Creed and Religion 31 
 
 " One, only .24 
 
 Creeds, Orthodox Christian 21, 23 
 
 Criticism of the Scriptures ? 34 
 
 Crusades 79 
 
 Custom with the Roman Church 31 
 
 r>. 
 
 Darkness 48, 49 
 
 Darkness, Spiritual 18 
 
 Darwinism 42, 64 
 Day 49, 59, 60 
 
 Dead-Hand 118 
 
 Death 21, 41 
 
 Declamation, Childish 53 
 
 Decrees of Providence 20 
 
 Deity, Incomprehensible 16, 34 
 
 Delusion, Happy 19 
 
 Dervishes 94 
 
 Description of Agnostics 25, 27 
 
 Desires, Sensual 20 
 
 Destruction of the Social Fabric 100 
 
 Dictates from Rome 18 
 
 DifFerenciations 79 
 
 Disfranchising the Minority 11 
 
 Disputes as to creeds 76 
 
 Divinity 32 
 
 Doctrine 27 
 
 Dogmas 66 
 
 Dogmas, Buddhist 22 
 
 Dogmas, Christian 22 
 
 Dogmas, Newly Created 12 
 
 Dogmas, Registered 27 
 
 Doubt, Mental 18 
 
 Draper 53 
 
 Drunkenness 105 
 
 Dukes of Bavaria 11 
 
 E. 
 
 Earth— Globe 62 
 
 Education, Distorted 18 
 
 " Conscience Outcome of 20 
 
— 131 — 
 
 Education, Nonsectarian 
 
 44 
 
 94 
 
 " Popular 
 44 of Indians 
 
 
 100 
 
 
 103 
 
 Educator of Humanity 
 
 
 31 
 
 Effect 
 
 
 38 
 
 Elsmere, Robert 
 
 
 21 
 
 Encroachment of Rome on Liberty of Conscience 
 
 
 27 
 
 Enemies of Christianity 
 
 26, 
 
 30 
 
 Enthusiasm for Knowledge 
 
 30, 
 
 32 
 
 " for truth not begotten in vice 
 
 
 27 
 
 Enunciator, Self Appointed, of Agnosticism 
 
 
 29 
 
 Error 
 
 
 24 
 
 Evidence, Historical 
 
 
 21 
 
 Evolution 
 
 
 42 
 
 Evolution, First Step of, Unexplained 
 
 
 42 
 
 Evolution, Gradual 
 
 
 48 
 
 F. 
 
 
 
 Fact, First, Unexplained 
 
 
 42 
 
 Facts assertainable 
 
 
 41 
 
 Faculties, human 
 
 
 38 
 
 Faculty of Rendering Proof for a Supernatural 
 
 
 
 theorem 
 
 
 37 
 
 Faith 
 
 
 74 
 
 Fairy tale 
 
 
 49 
 
 Faith and Religion Confused 
 
 
 31 
 
 " Vague and Undefined 
 
 
 18 
 
 14 Mohammedan 
 
 
 70 
 
 Fanaticism 
 
 
 78 
 
 Fanatic 
 
 81, 
 
 94 
 
 Fighting for Freedom of Conscience 
 
 
 31 
 
 Firmament 
 
 
 48 
 
 Foe, The Common 
 
 14, 
 
 17 
 
 Fold, Christian, To Lead Back to 
 
 
 19 
 
 a of the Roman Church 
 
 
 9 
 
 Fossils 
 
 
 61 
 
 Fowl 
 
 
 62 
 
 Francon Sovereigns 
 Freedom of the Holy See 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 106 
 
 Freedom of Conscience 12, 
 
 31, 
 
 53 
 
 Freethinker, Professional 
 
 
 24 
 
 French Canadians 
 
 
 83 
 
 Fruit tree 
 
 
 48 
 
 Gr. 
 
 
 
 Oalileo 
 
 
 57 
 
 Genealogy 
 
 
 63 
 
 Generalization 
 
 
 93 
 
182 
 
 Generation of infidels 
 
 
 88 
 
 " Rising 
 
 
 26 
 
 Genesis 
 
 52, 
 
 59 
 
 Geology 
 God, Personal 
 
 
 59 
 
 
 19 
 
 Gordon, Dr. A. J. 
 
 
 33 
 
 Gouin 
 
 
 83 
 
 Government, Providential, of the World 
 
 
 55 
 
 Government, Unsectarian 
 
 
 108 
 
 Grace Founded on Nature 
 
 
 19 
 
 " of believing 
 
 24, 
 
 40 
 
 Grass 
 
 
 48 
 
 Gravity, Law of 
 
 
 42 
 
 Gregorv XVI. 
 Ground, Common 
 
 
 89 
 
 
 29 
 
 il Agnostics stand on 
 
 
 24 
 
 K. 
 
 
 
 Hallucinations 
 
 35, 
 
 72 
 
 Happiness 
 
 23, 76, 
 
 88 
 
 Harmony between Science and Revelation 
 
 
 52 
 
 " with Surrounding Nature 
 
 
 76 
 
 Hatred 
 
 26, 
 
 78 
 
 Haynes, Dr Emory J. 
 
 
 83 
 
 Heart, Human 
 
 
 52 
 
 Heathen in Boston 
 
 
 33 
 
 Herb 
 
 
 48 
 
 Heretics 
 
 
 17 
 
 Hierarchy 
 
 9, 27, 
 
 90 
 
 a Creation of 
 
 
 9 
 
 History 
 
 
 29 
 
 il of Mankind 
 
 81, 
 
 42 
 
 " of Early Humanity 
 
 
 45 
 
 Hoffman's Roman Catholic Directory 
 
 
 109 
 
 Hohenzoller, Cardinal 
 
 
 84 
 
 Home rule 
 
 
 97 
 
 Honorius III. 
 
 
 79 
 
 Humanity, Educating 
 
 
 30 
 
 Early 
 
 
 48 
 
 " in general 
 
 
 
 Huxley 
 
 33, 
 
 58 
 
 I. 
 
 Ignatius of Loyola 
 
 
 28 
 
 Ignorance of Phys. Laws 
 
 
 16 
 
 " of Agnostics. 
 
 
 16 
 
 Illusions 
 
 35, 
 
 72 
 
 Imagination, Infantile 
 
 
 48 
 
— 133 — 
 
 Immortality 
 
 
 21 
 
 Immutability of species 
 
 
 63 
 
 Inaccuracy 
 
 
 80 
 
 Inclinations, Evil 
 
 
 20 
 
 Incongruities between the unseen and the visible 
 
 46 
 
 Increase of Roman Church in U. 8. 11, 
 
 109, 
 
 110 
 
 Index librorum prohibitorum 
 
 
 74 
 
 Indians 
 
 
 11 
 
 Individuality 
 
 
 41 
 
 Infallibility 
 
 
 63 
 
 Infidelity, Agnostics glorying in 
 Ingratitude of Roman Church 
 
 
 27 
 
 
 14 
 
 Inheritance of Freedom 
 
 
 99 
 
 Inheritance, Freedom of 
 
 
 99 
 
 Inimity to Christianity 
 
 
 26 
 
 Innocent III. 
 
 
 79 
 
 Inquisition 
 
 
 79 
 
 Institutes, Educational 
 
 
 28 
 
 Intellect, Human 
 
 
 69 
 
 Interest, Tripartite in Divinity 
 
 
 68 
 
 Intellect, Superior to Grace 
 
 
 24 
 
 Intercourse between Supernatural and Natural 
 
 
 44 
 
 Investigation 
 
 
 39 
 
 Isolation of Sexes 
 
 
 22 
 
 Israelite 
 
 
 52 
 
 •X. 
 
 
 
 •Japan 
 
 
 52 
 
 Jesus Christ 13, 15, 
 
 86, 
 
 87 
 
 Jews 
 
 u, 
 
 52 
 
 K. 
 
 
 
 Kepler 
 
 
 57 
 
 Kingdom, Animal and Vegetable 
 Kings of Bavaria 
 
 
 61 
 
 11, 
 
 12 
 
 Knees 
 
 
 24 
 
 Knowledge, Human 
 
 
 39 
 
 " of the Supernatural 
 
 
 51 
 
 " of Supernatural Religion 
 
 
 19 
 
 Koran 
 
 
 70 
 
 Hu 
 
 
 
 Labor, Intellectual 
 
 45, 
 
 74 
 
 Latin, Ritualistic 
 
 
 95 
 
 Lawgiver, Divine 
 
 16, 
 
 49 
 
 Law of Guarantees 
 
 
 114 
 
 " Moral 
 
 
 49 
 
 " Physical 
 
 16, 
 
 20 
 
 " Universal 
 
 
 49 
 
 Laymen 
 
 81, 
 
 98 
 
— 134 — 
 
 Laziness, Intellectual 45 
 
 Leaders, Assumed 35 
 
 Lecturers 27, 31 
 
 Leisure to peruse bulky volumes 9 
 
 Leo XIII. 106 
 
 Liberty of Conscience 13 
 
 Life, To Account for 42 
 
 ■ Natural 78 
 
 " Supernatural 79 
 
 " Eternal 31 
 
 " of Agnostics 30 
 
 " of Catholic Clergymen * 30 
 
 Light, Longing for 23 
 
 Light 49, 60 
 
 r Ready made 48 
 
 Limits to Human Faculties 46, 65 
 
 Louis XVI. 10 
 
 Louis Philip 10 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius of 28 
 
 M. 
 
 Majority of Readers 9, 14 
 
 Majority of Voters 97 
 
 Man, Part of Nature 38 
 
 " of His Origin and Destiny 62 
 
 Martyrs of Science 13 
 
 Blood of 13 
 
 Marvel, Greatest 49 
 
 Masses, Roman Catholic 31 
 
 Masses Following Freethinkers 17 
 
 Masses, Ignorant 14 
 
 Masses Outside of Christ Creeds 21 
 
 Means, scanty 29 
 
 Mediation of the Church 102 
 
 Membership of Creed Community 76 
 
 Men, Ungodly 15 
 
 Messier, Premier 83 
 
 Method to gain a R. C. voter 80 
 
 Millenium of Happiness 18 
 
 of persecution 52 
 
 11 of experience 28 
 
 Millions of Dollars 28 
 
 Mind 24 
 
 Miracles 65 
 
 Misrepresentation 35 
 
 Mohammed 70 
 
 Money Making 29 
 
 Monopoly on Religion 32 
 
135- 
 
 Moon 
 
 48, 
 
 49 
 
 Moors 
 
 
 11 
 
 Moses 
 
 52, 
 
 53 
 
 Music, Heavenly, of the Spheres (?) 
 
 
 47 
 
 Mysteries 
 
 
 16 
 
 IS". 
 
 
 
 Napoleon I. 
 
 
 10 
 
 " III. 
 
 
 10 
 
 Nationalism 
 
 
 117 
 
 Nations, Bestowing Liberal Education 
 
 
 26 
 
 Natural 
 
 
 32 
 
 Naturalism 
 
 
 42 
 
 Nature, Part of 
 
 
 39 
 
 ' l li Individual 
 
 
 28 
 
 * ' Moral and Religious 
 
 
 18 
 
 Necessity, Political 
 
 
 10 
 
 New England 
 
 
 33 
 
 Newspapers, Catholic 
 
 
 105 
 
 Night 
 
 49, 
 
 60 
 
 Nihilism 
 
 
 102 
 
 Nonsense 
 
 
 49 
 
 Nation, False 
 
 
 20 
 
 Novitiate 
 
 
 28 
 
 O. 
 
 
 
 Oath 
 
 
 23 
 
 Obedience to the Church 
 
 
 110 
 
 Obedience to the Roman Church 
 
 99, 
 
 110 
 
 Objects to Christianity 
 Obligation, Men's Moral 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 55 
 
 Obliquity, Moral 
 
 
 18 
 
 Observations 
 
 
 38 
 
 u Methodical 
 
 39, 
 
 72 
 
 " Repeatable 
 
 
 40 
 
 " Manner of 
 
 
 45 
 
 Obstinacy, Fanatic 
 
 
 49 
 
 One amongst many 
 
 
 26 
 
 Ontario 
 
 
 82 
 
 Opinion 
 
 
 42 
 
 Order, Chronological, of Moses 
 
 
 61 
 
 Origin of all things 
 
 
 43 
 
 " " Genesis 
 
 
 
 Orthodoxism 
 
 
 35 
 
 I*- 
 
 
 
 Paganism 
 
 1 13 
 
 , 31 
 
 Pagans 
 
 
 17 
 
 Pantheists 
 
 
 65 
 
~i3d — 
 
 Papacy 
 
 
 63 
 
 Parade of Irreligion 
 
 
 18 
 
 Passions 
 
 
 21 
 
 Pauperism 
 
 
 100 
 
 Penetration of Nature by the Supernatural 
 
 
 67 
 
 Period of Existence 
 
 
 43 
 
 Personality of Hierarchy 
 
 It. 
 
 22 
 
 Persuasion 
 
 10, 
 
 78 
 
 People, Roman Catholic 
 
 
 27 
 
 Perception, Sensual 
 Periodicals, Catholic 
 
 
 43 
 
 
 106 
 
 Philosophy 
 
 
 16 
 
 Physiologist 
 
 
 63 
 
 Pius IX. 
 
 
 113 
 
 Placet, Royal 
 
 
 11 
 
 Planets 
 
 
 62 
 
 Plenary Council of Baltimore 
 
 
 99 
 
 Pontifex, Roman 
 
 12, 
 
 90 
 
 Power, Political 
 
 
 80 
 
 H Spiritual 
 H Temporal 
 
 10, 
 
 68 
 
 7 
 
 10 
 
 * " Exercised by the Church 
 
 
 58 
 
 " Voting 
 
 
 80 
 
 Practice of the Church 
 
 
 10 
 
 Prayer 44, 
 
 90, 91, 
 
 92 
 
 Predecessors in the Hierarchy 
 
 
 9 
 
 Prerogatives of Kings 
 
 
 11 
 
 President of the United States 
 
 
 90 
 
 Press Asst. Agency, Catholic 
 
 
 105 
 
 Priests of the Roman Church 
 
 80, 
 
 67 
 
 Principles of Religion 
 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 Prisons and Hospitals 
 
 
 104 
 
 Privilege to organize 
 
 
 103 
 
 Procesees, Creative 
 
 
 61 
 
 Proof for Supernatural Theorem 
 
 
 44 
 
 ** Rational, of Existence 
 
 
 37 
 
 " Secular 
 
 
 68 
 
 Promise 
 
 
 23 
 
 Propagating the Roman Catholic Faith 
 
 77, 
 
 90 
 
 Protestantism 
 
 34| 
 
 97 
 
 Protestants 
 
 11. 
 
 23 
 
 Protestant writers 
 
 
 13 
 
 Quebec Government 83 
 Quotations from Cardinal James Gibbons 1 book 
 
 ''Our Christian Heritage" 9, 18, 14, 15, 16 
 
 Questions, Supernatural 41, 42 
 
-137 
 
 R. 
 
 
 
 Rack 
 
 
 80 
 
 Rate of Increase of Roman Church 
 
 
 109 
 
 Raymond of Albigeois 
 
 
 79 
 
 Reading, Obscene 
 
 
 83 
 
 Reason, Unaided 
 
 
 46 
 
 Rebuke 
 
 
 75 
 
 Reform Movements 
 
 
 97 
 
 Relief 
 
 
 32 
 
 Religion 
 
 
 76 
 
 " Natural 
 
 
 19 
 
 New 
 
 
 29 
 
 " Supernatural 
 
 19, 
 
 32 
 
 Remus 
 
 
 57 
 
 Repetition from eccl. Authors 
 
 
 17 
 
 Reptiles 
 
 
 62 
 
 Republic, French 
 
 
 10 
 
 " of Scientists 
 
 
 32 
 
 Reputation, Cheap 
 
 
 29 
 
 Research* and Religion 
 
 
 31 
 
 Resistance to aggression 
 
 
 11 
 
 Revelation 35, 43, 
 
 64 
 
 " Rejected 
 
 21, 
 
 23 
 
 " . The Boldest 
 
 
 52 
 
 Revolutions, Planetary- 
 
 57, 
 
 60 
 
 Right and Wrong 
 
 
 49 
 
 Rights, Divine, of Passion 
 
 22, 
 
 22 
 
 Road to Roman Catholicism 
 
 
 75 
 
 Rule of the Church 
 
 
 10 
 
 " Spanish 
 
 
 11 
 
 Rulers, Political, of U. S. 
 
 
 10 
 
 Ruler, Sovereign 
 
 
 15 
 
 Sacrifices Hard to Flesh andTBlbod 
 
 
 18 
 
 Saloons in Politics 
 
 
 104 
 
 Salvation 
 
 
 20 
 
 Salvation Army 
 Saints 
 
 n, 
 
 94 
 
 
 72 
 
 Scandal 
 
 
 22 
 
 School System 
 
 
 81 
 
 Science 
 
 
 38 
 
 Scientists 
 
 
 30 
 
 jfe Modern 
 
 
 48 
 
 Scoffer at Religion : rii' • 
 
 
 15 
 
 Scoffing at Religion i 
 
 
 31 
 
 Scripiurea. Revealed 
 
 
 10 
 
 Scruples 
 
 
 92 
 
— 138 — 
 
 Search for Facts and Truth 12, 
 
 24, 
 
 26 
 
 Selection, Intellectual 
 
 
 35 
 
 Sense, Sound 
 
 
 16 
 
 Senses, Human 
 
 38, 
 
 39 
 
 Shearer, Dr. 
 
 
 80 
 
 Shintoism 
 
 
 52 
 
 Shock to Moral and Religious Nature 
 
 
 18 
 
 Skeletons 
 
 
 61 
 
 Slaveholders 
 
 
 89 
 
 Slavery 
 
 
 89 
 
 Socialism 
 
 102, 
 
 117 
 
 Soul 
 
 
 46 
 
 Souls, Salvation of 
 
 
 20 
 
 Source of All Human Knowledge 
 
 
 56 
 
 Sovereign People 
 
 
 10 
 
 Sovereigns 
 
 
 10 
 
 u Spanish 
 
 
 13 
 
 li Their Resistance to Roman Church 
 
 
 11 
 
 Sovereignty 
 
 
 10 
 
 Space at Large 
 
 
 38 
 
 Speaking ex Cathedra 
 
 
 12 
 
 Step, First, to Evolution 
 
 
 42 
 
 Storyteller 
 
 
 49 
 
 Submission, Violent, of Intellect 
 
 
 40 
 
 " Grace 
 
 
 40 
 
 Substance 
 
 39, 
 
 42 
 
 Suddenness of Creation 
 
 
 48 
 
 Sufferers from Church Compulsion 
 
 
 26 
 
 Sun 48, 49, 
 
 57, 
 
 etc. 
 
 Sunday Observance 
 
 
 104 
 
 Supernatural 16, 32, 
 
 39, 
 
 73 
 
 Supernaturalism 
 
 
 42 
 
 Support of Catholicism by Protestants 
 
 
 14 
 
 Supreme Being 
 
 
 73 
 
 Suspicion Against Teachings 
 
 
 35 
 
 Sword in Hand 
 
 
 11 
 
 11 Roman Church Draws no 
 
 
 79 
 
 T. 
 
 
 
 Tacitus 
 
 
 84 
 
 Teaching, Public 
 
 
 12 
 
 Te Deum laudamus 
 
 
 10 
 
 Tendency to Use Brutal Power 
 
 
 79 
 
 Test, Critical 
 
 
 38 
 
 Theologians 
 
 
 76 
 
 Theology 
 
 
 42 
 
 Theorem 
 
 
 23 
 
 Theorems, Natural 
 
 39, 
 
 41 
 
— 139 — 
 
 Theorems, Supernatural 40, 41 
 
 Ther sites 15 
 
 Things, Indigestible 33 
 
 Natural 42 
 
 Thiers, President 10 
 
 Thought, Human 39 
 Tradition 27, 60 
 
 Training, Intellectual 44 
 
 " Moral and Religious 100 
 
 Transmission, Intellectual 43 
 
 Tribes, Indian 82 
 Trickster 
 
 Trinity 19 
 
 Truth of Natural Religion 18 
 
 " Revealed i 6 
 
 Tutelage by the Clergy 120 
 Tyndall 33, 93 
 
 XJ. 
 
 "Unanimity of Mankind 47 
 
 Unbelief, Modern 62 
 
 Unknown, The 24 
 
 Untrained, Intellectually 24 
 
 V. 
 
 "Vaux 79 
 
 Veracity, Want of 30 
 
 Vice 27 
 
 Victim 69 
 
 Vigor, Moral and Intellectual, to resist 18 
 
 Vincent de Paul Society 102 
 
 Virtue 22 
 
 Voice of Conscience 20 
 Volume, Affectionately Addressed to Those 
 
 Estranged to the Gospel 18 
 
 Voters 80 
 
 Vow 23 
 
 Vulgarity 28 
 
 W. 
 
 Wafer 68 
 
 War, 30 Years 97 
 
 Weakness, Human 32 
 
 Wealth 88 
 
 Wickedness 24 
 
 Will, Curbing of 28 
 
 Women 111 
 
 World, Material 16 
 
 " Supernatural 16 
 
 Writers, Protestant 13 
 
 " Catholic 105 
 
Zealots 
 Zealotry 
 
 140 
 
 31, 80 
 104 
 
— 141 — 
 
 All correspondence must be enveloped twice: 
 1st (inner) with the mark I I 
 
 2d (outer) with direction to " Polytechnical News Company," 
 
 New York (7 Pearl Street). 
 
 PROPAGANDA 
 VERITATIS NATURALIS. 
 
 Society for Propagating Natural Truth. 
 CONSTITUTION". 
 
 1. The Propaganda Veritatis Naturalis is intended to spread 
 all over the earth and therefore named in a language used by all na- 
 tions. She has associated for the purpose of propagating knowledge 
 about natural things as a safeguard against superstition and 
 against the false claims of teachers of supernatural theorems. 
 
 2. This purpose is to be promoted by seven methods namely: 
 
 a. Personal attendance to local meetings of members of both sexes 
 of the association. 
 
 b. The establishment and use of libraries under the control of 
 the P. V. N. containing preferably such literature, by which 
 the intents of the Propaganda V. N. will be fostered. 
 
 c. The establishment of abodes for Propagandists to meet in, 
 their libraries to be kept in, and the people to be admitted in, to 
 hear natural truth expounded. 
 
 d. The publication of a series of books and periodicals to show 
 and explain the position assumed by the P. V. N. and to propagate 
 such knowledge as will foster the tendencies of the Propaganda. 
 
 e. The mutual promotion of the temporal welfare of and by all 
 members of the Propaganda V. N. by giving to them at least 
 legitimate preference under equal conditions in all cases involving 
 the interest of members. 
 
 f. The maintenance of special voluntary associations with condi- 
 tions equal to all and on an elective basis for securing work to the 
 industrious, information to the intellect, care to the sick or 
 poor, and honorable burial to the dead. 
 
 g. The support by members of the P. V. N. within their own polit- 
 ical party of members of theP.V. N. in all nominations and elec- 
 tions for public offices. 
 
142 — 
 
 3. The Propaganda V. N. is both national and international. 
 Her organization is that of a people ruling itself by conferring in 
 election its authority to its own temporary agents for legislative, 
 judicial and executive purposes, her Constitution being similar 
 to that of the United States with unimpeached autonomy of all 
 parts and stages in her organization, the different orders having 
 the sole object of training the members for the necessary functions 
 within the organization. 
 
 4. The Propaganda Veritatis Naturalis is as a Tree and consists 
 of Roots, one Trunk and Branches. 
 
 Her Roots are the National Associations, (National Chapters) 
 each with Autonomy of Organization, parted one from another 
 by their idioms, each including seven orders (1 to 7). 
 
 Her Trunk consists in the International Organization (In- 
 ternational Chapter) of Legislators (Congress). Advisers (Senate) 
 and the executive authority, the Great Grand Master. 
 
 Her Branches are the International Workers chosen from 
 National Chapters, chosen by and acting under authority emanat- 
 ing from the Great Grand Master, Masters of National Chapters. 
 They include orders 11 and 12 of the Missionary Chapter,one order of 
 missionaries acting in their own chapter, and one order acting 
 as envoys to other chapters. 
 
 5. The Propaganda Veritatis Naturalis has members, who 
 enter as such of the first order, and may, by virtue of holding an 
 ele tive office in the order or by election amongst their equals, or 
 by appointment through either the National or International Ex- 
 ecutive Power be advanced from order to order. 
 
 6. The twelve orders of the Propaganda Veritatis Naturalis are. 
 
 f 1. Order of Readers. 
 TJiinkers. 
 
 Speakers. (Local Expounders) 
 Lecturers. 
 
 Writers (Local Officers). 
 Workers (National Officers) or 
 Founders (Apostles). 
 Grand Master of National 
 Chapter. 
 
 Legislators ( Congress ) Ex 
 
 Grand Masters of National 
 
 Chapters. 
 
 Advisers ( Ex-Great Grand 
 
 Masters). (Senate). 
 
 Great Grand Master, by whom 
 
 all Charters to Chapters 
 
 or Parishes are executed. 
 
 National Chapters 
 
 2. 
 
 i' 
 
 3. 
 
 a 
 
 4. 
 
 tt 
 
 5. 
 
 a 
 
 6. 
 
 n 
 
 International 
 Chapter 
 
 7. 
 8. 
 
 9. 
 10. 
 
— 143 — 
 
 r 11. Order of Permanent Commisioners re- 
 presenting the International 
 Great Grand Master in each 
 Missionary national Chapter (Ex-Great 
 
 J Grand Masters and Ex- 
 
 Chapter ; Grand Masters) 
 
 | *12. " Envoys extraordinary from 
 the International Great 
 I Grand Master to National 
 
 Chapters. 
 
 7. The Propaganda uses (international) signs of recognition 
 each order adding one to those of the lower orders. 
 
 8. Only at official gatherings of the Propaganda Y. N. members 
 are under obligation to respond to calls for recognition. 
 
 Willingness to respond to all calls for recognition by members 
 of the Propaganda V. N., is expressed by the wearing of the Pro* 
 paganda V. N.'s Emblem. 
 
 10. Readership (First Order) is acquired by the purchase or 
 six of its serial publications, evidenced by the return of blanks 
 taken from the copies purchased, and involves no obligations but 
 entitles to admission to the second order (of thinkers) without 
 other formalities than the registration in the secret lists of the 
 Propaganda V. N. as members of the second orders. 
 
 11. Applicants to the second order are entitled to be informed oi 
 the By-Laws of the Propaganda before entering the same and of the 
 signs and emblems of their order and of the symbols, with which 
 the officers of their order sign. 
 
 12. The mark: "Published by order of the Society for Propa- 
 gating Natural Truth", or other words of the same or similar 
 meaning can be attached to any book or periodical only under a 
 written authority from the "Secretary for Publications of the Society 
 for Propagating Natural Truth.''' 1 And this authority is given 
 only under a special order from the National Grand Master, who 
 shall previously hear the workers, and such order is not made, 
 unless the book or periodical be printed on the P. V. N.'s own 
 presses or be issued under contract, by which the P. V. N. receives 
 a share in the proceeds towards her administrative expenses. 
 
 The Propaganda V. N. does not assume by such mark responsi 
 bility for all contents but signifies the approval of the general 
 tendency of the publication only. 
 
 Printed by resolution of the Senate and by order of the 
 National Grand Master of the chapter of the U. S. N. A., and by 
 order of the Great-Grand Master of the Propaganda V. N. 
 The Secretary for Publications of the 
 
 Society for Propagating Natural Truth. 
 
 D 
 
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