Auricular Confession and Popish Nunneries Part 11

Such was the condition in which the Jesuit Bishop, Fenwick, found him here in Boston; and what, to all appearance, could be more philanthropic, what more practically Christian--what more benevolent deed could the Pope's agent do, _for effect_--than take this man by the hand and supply him with the necessaries of life. And what, under these circ.u.mstances, could be expected from the changeling, Brownson, than that he would devote all his mind to the justification of any falsehood or any errors, which his benefactors might desire to propagate. I find no fault with Bishop Fen-wick for relieving the temporal wants of Brownson; on the contrary, I freely admit, that the act is, in itself, and abstractedly considered, an act of benevolence and charity. We are bound to recognize in every human creature and every human face, the features of a brother and a neighbor. I would not, willingly, even question the motives of the Bishop; they are known only to his G.o.d.

It would not be fair nor judicious in a physician, to take a body apparently sound and in health, and dissect it, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were any hidden disease in it He should take it for granted--as a general rule--that when all appearances were good and healthy, there existed no physical defect; and I think and believe it the duty of Christians to take it for granted, that, generally speaking, the motives of a brother are good, when his actions bear upon their face no indication of being otherwise. But when any man or any church, holds up to the view of a whole people or nation, one who has been for years and years an advocate of moral evil, as an object not only of pity and pardon, but of admiration--as Bishop Fenwick does the infidel, Brownson--every true Christian must tremble, and every true lover of civil rights must shudder, lest each sound that he hears should prove to be the death-knell of our religion and the civil rights of man.

Unfortunate Brownson! why prost.i.tute thyself to the base purposes of Popery? Thou mightest have been in want; Protestants might have neglected thee; but what of that? What of the sufferings of this transitory and fleeting world? Let me tell you, and let the sound of my words ring forever in your ears, that,

"Life can but little more supply Than just to look about us and to die."

The above beautiful sentiment of the poet, has, I fear, but seldom occurred to you; a.s.suredly it has made no lasting impression on your mind. It is probable that the following stanza, part of a famous monkish ditty, has in it beauties and substantial sentiments, far more congenial to your tastes and thoughts:

"Hang up sorrow, banish care; The Pope is bound to find me."

But a truce with poor Brownson, for a moment; his days will soon be over. Like the great Mr. Shandy, he has been so long "dancing his white bear forward, that he must soon commence dancing him back again." He has already professed all the religious creeds in this country, and it is fairly to be presumed that he will profess all of them back again; and thus afford himself fresh and full room, for displaying, in connection with them, any additional political or religious vagaries which may spring up in his moonstricken imagination. He may address himself to his patron, parson Fenwick, as Mr. Shandy did Parson Yorrick. "Yorrick, said Mr. Shandy, you see that by this means--that is by going backwards and forwards--every thesis and hypothesis have an offspring of propositions--and each proposition has its consequences and conclusions; every one of which leads the mind back again, into fresh tracks of inquiries and doubtings. The force of this engine--observed Mr. Shandy, in great triumph--is incredible, in opening heads. Brother Shandy, said my Uncle Toby, it is enough to burst them into splinters."

Had Brownson, in the Jesuit parson, Fenwick, a guide, simple, sinless, and guileless, as Parson Yorrick or my uncle Toby, there might be some hopes that he could yet be brought to see and feel the full force of truth. But Brownson will stick to the Jesuit as long as he gives him bread, and the Jesuit appreciates his value too highly not to supply him plentifully. The Jesuit knows well, that the little smattering of theology, which Brownson possesses, can be made useful to him. It is of the German School. The Germans are wild in their theories upon morals and theology, and yet they carry with them the appearance of much honest and persevering research, and never fail--unless in very unskilful hands--to make a strong and terrible impression wherever they are preached or inculcated. Brownson, though, in truth and reality, no scholar, knows enough of this theology, and of Popish Quietism, such as was taught by raving monks and nuns in the sixteenth century, to see that by working them up together, and declaiming this undigested and 22 acrid ma.s.s, before an audience unprepared to a.n.a.lyze it, that he can produce just such an effect upon the public mind as Popish priests desire. It helps to create infidelity, and, of course, adds to the number of Papists in our country.

There is a great similitude between the modern German, and the Popish moral philosophy. A popular writer very truly and very beautifully says, "in each we find the same senseless, useless, and aimless encouragement of the mixed produce of the natural mind--the same indiscriminate wors.h.i.+p of the good and bad it may please to throw up--every lawless thought, every idle dream, every dangerous imagination suffered to run their unhealthy course, to end in folly and in impurity--piety professed without religion, and virtue without principle--the dictates of their respective creeds, their theory; and the dictates of their hearts, their practice; and wild work between them."

Brownson has some vague notion of this compound philosophy; he has, beside, taken great pains to make himself acquainted with those _sesquipidalia_, or long-legged words--if I may use such a term--which most mixed audiences mistake for learning. The Jesuit, Hughes, soon measured Brownson; he looked into his past life and soon found him treacherous to every party and to every principle. This is the man for me, says the Jesuit--the Holy Church must have him, though we should be obliged to feed and clothe him for life. The infidel soon closed with the Jesuit,--a bargain was instantly made; but my observations upon human nature have been very unprofitable to me, if the Jesuit does not soon find that he has made a bad trade, as a Yankee would express it; that Brownson is not the man he took him for, nor the scholar he took him for; that he is but an unprincipled infidel, and a kind of monomaniac rhapsodist on subjects which he does not understand himself; in a word, he will find out in time that he can make nothing of him. Can the Jesuit, Hughes, "make any thing else than what it is?" can he "make the lily a rose, or the rose a lily?" can he "make the oak a vine, or the vine an oak?" When he can do those things, and not a second before, can he make a hardened infidel an humble Christian, or a treacherous politician a safe citizen.

I find myself, once more, not only drifting from my destined port, but, it would seem, that I had turned from it altogether. I intended to devote these pages, almost exclusively, to giving an expose of the abominations of auricular confessions and Popish nunneries, but having by some accident or another, come athwart the great changeling, Brownson, who now acts as trumpeter to Bishop Fenwick of Boston, and is recognized by him and the Popish Church of the United States, as an authorized expounder of their sentiments and doctrines, I felt it my duty to notice him briefly. This man, Brownson, is now sent as a Popish missionary or lecturer throughout the United States; and speaks upon all subjects connected with Popery, _ex authoritate_.

I find in the January number of Brownson's Review, of the present year, the following effusion, which, for effrontery and shameless falsehood, equals any thing I have ever seen. "We dare affirm," says Brownson, in his Review, January, 1845, page 12, "that no period in the history of our race, of equal length, can be pointed out, so remarkable for its intellectual and literary activity, as the thousand years, dating from the beginning of the sixth century, and extending to the commencement of the sixteenth. Now," continues Brownson, "in order to judge fairly, what the church has done for the human race; whether in reference to religion, morals, literature, or science, we must ascertain what it actually effected. She (that is the church) at the beginning of the sixth century, sets to work to establish schools, the great monasterial schools, cathedral or episcopal schools. In the beginning of the sixth century, arose the cathedral schools, in Spain. All the great, renowned universities, were founded prior to the Reformation. Nearly all the monasteries were graced and enriched by valuable libraries. In each monastery was a _scriptorium_, and a number of monks employed in copying and binding ma.n.u.scripts." There is much plausibility in the language of Brownson, now the jackal of Popery in the United States. I am willing to admit that a vast number of colleges and renowned universities, were established before the Reformation, in Rome, Italy and even England.

I would also admit that there were scriptoriums and that monks were employed in copying ma.n.u.scripts and binding books; but has the ill.u.s.trious changeling, Brownson, told us for what purposes these great universities were established, prior to the Reformation? Far be it from me to deny their existence, that would indeed show that I was but a poor historian, and that I knew but very little of the corruptions of the Romish Church. Sixtus IV., one of the infallible Popes of Rome, established whole colleges at once, and much as I have said against Popery and its corruptions, I have not, as yet, exhibited so flagrant an instance of Popish turpitude, baseness and avarice, as Pope Sixtus IV.

leaves on record, by the single act of building these universities. He established offices and t.i.tles in each college, which were put up for sale by him, and were sold for sums, varying from one hundred, to one thousand and twenty thousand ducats. It was this ill.u.s.trious and infallible Pope, Sixtus IV.,--and I pray you will bear it in mind, thou great changeling,--that established a college of a hundred janizaries, and nominated these janizaries for the trifling sum of one hundred thousand ducats. And how, think you, reader, did he pay them their salaries? Was it out of the bonus of a hundred thousand ducats, which he received for chartering or sanctioning the college? Far from it. He paid them some trifling compensation, derived from the proceeds of the sales of bulls. These janizaries were subsequently suppressed. Innocent III.,--and you will recollect, Mr. Brownson, that he was Pope of Rome between the sixth and sixteenth centuries,--founded a university for a bonus of sixty thousand scudi; (a scudi, I believe, is a fraction less than a dollar.) The reader may form some idea of the magnitude and splendor of this university, when I inform him, that this college had twenty-six secretaries, and a proportionable number of other officers; every one of whom paid in proportion to his means, for the office he held.

Pope Alexander VI., who, as you know, was born between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, and whom the changeling's friend Daniel O'Connell, would call a _broth of a boy_, established a university, and to showed his zeal for the great cause of learning and advancement of morals, he nominated eighty writers of Popish briefs, each of whom had to pay eight hundred and fifty scudi for his appointment. This very Pope, Alexander VI., was one of the greatest debauchees of his age, and died by poison administered by the hand of his own son. Pope Julius II., who also lived between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, added to these offices one hundred writers or copyists of archives, each of whom had also to pay seven hundred and fifty scudi. I have taken Brownson at his word. He affirms that no period in the history of our race, of equal length, can be pointed out, so remarkable for intellectual activity, as that which occurred between the sixth and sixteenth centuries. I have and do hereby affirm, that there has been no period, in the history of Christianity, so remarkable for intellectual depravity and Popish ignorance, as that very self-same period. I have appealed to history and proved my a.s.sertion by facts, not taken from prejudiced writers, but facts recorded and gloried in by Popes themselves and Popish writers.

It is said by Papists and authoritatively a.s.serted by their mouth-piece in the United States, that the colleges and universities built by Papists, in the interval between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, were pulled down by the Protestants, Goths and Vandals, who have lived since that period. Admitting that they have been, what then, Mr. Brownson?

What man or what people, in their sober senses, would tolerate the colleges established by Pope Sixtus in 1482, where offices were put up at auction, and that under the sacred name of religion; where nothing was taught but the grossest idolatry, and nothing practised but simony and immorality, almost as bad as that of the heathens. Would any man at the present day, with the fear of G.o.d before his eyes, or who duly appreciated the blessings of civil liberty, tolerate amongst ourselves, a university such as one of those over which Popes Paul and Sixtus presided, even in the palmiest days of Christianity? According to Brownson, himself, a.s.suredly not. We should pull it down were it amongst us; we should scatter to the winds these Popish brief s, decretals and bulk, which thousands of monks were employed in copying and binding. We should vest in some factory, those thousands and hundreds of thousands of scudi, which were given to Popes for chartering universities of learning--don't laugh, reader--yes, reader, they were called universities of learning--and we would send the lazy, crazy monks, who were by thousands employed in them, to work on our fields or in our factories.

It was between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, that Alexander III., presiding in his official capacity over a synod held at Tours, in 1167, p.r.o.nounced the Protestant religion of the Vaudois "_a d.a.m.nable heresy of long standing_." Do you call this any evidence of the _great mental activity_ which the Popish Church displayed, and for which she and her members were so remarkable, prior to the sixteenth century? There was another synod at Lavoux, in the same year, where the Pope gives another instance of the remarkable intellectual and literary activity of the thousand years between the sixth and sixteenth centuries. The Popish Senate at Lavoux sent a memorial to the reigning Pope, to exterminate the Vaudois, "_an heretical pest, generated in olden times, of enormous growth and great antiquity_." I believe it was in 1536--recollect, Mr. Brownson, it is within your period of that thousand years, when, according to yourself, Popery flourished in the full blaze of her glory and love of literature--that the poor Protestants, the Vaudois, sent a number of pet.i.tions to Francis I., praying that he would tolerate them, and allow them to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d as they pleased. Francis I. consulted the Pope's legate, who was then at his court, and immediately returned for answer to these poor Protestants, "I am not burning heretics in France, to foster them among the Alps." Remarkable instance of the literary activity of the Popish Church! We have another strong instance of that intellectual and literary activity of which Brownson speaks, in Philip II. of Spain, who, to show his zeal for the holy Catholic faith, determined--with a view, I presume, of leaving some evidence of his Popish literary activity of mind--to despatch an army, under the command of one D'Oppede, with instructions to put to the sword every Protestant man, woman and child whom he might find in the Vaudois valley; and faithfully did he discharge his duty. He has left us, as the changeling Brownson would term it a remarkable instance of Popish intellectual activity* Not a man, woman, or child, was spared by this Popish army.

Anquetil, a Roman Catholic himself and in full communion with the Popish Church, gives us a vivid picture of the remarkable intellectual activity of this D'Oppede, and his Popish army. The reader will pardon me for quoting the pa.s.sage in the writings of Anquetil, containing this picture; it certainly shows a remarkable intellectual and literary activity of Popish minds, during Brownson's thousand years of their unsullied fame as scholars. "After the King of France granted permission to his Roman Catholic General D'Oppede, and his soldiers, to take arms against the Vaudois," says Anquetil, "twenty-two towns and villages were burned or pillaged, with an inhumanity of which the history of the most barbarous nations scarcely affords an example. The wretched inhabitants, surprised in the night, and hunted from rock to rock by the light of the flames which were consuming their habitations, frequently escaped one snare only to fall into another. The pitiful cries of the aged, the women and the children, instead of softening the hearts of the soldiers,--maddened with rage, like their leaders,--only served to guide them in the pursuit of the fugitives, and to indicate the points against which to direct their fury. Voluntary surrender did not exempt the men from slaughter, nor the women from brutal outrages at which nature revolts."

It was forbidden under pain of death to afford them harbor or succor.

In one town alone, more than seven hundred men were butchered in cold blood; and the women who had remained in their houses, were shut up in a barn containing a great quant.i.ty of straw, which was set on fire, and those who endeavored to escape from the windows, were driven back by swords and pikes. According to orders, these specimens of Popish intellectual literary activity demolished all the houses, cut down the wood, uprooted the fruit-trees, and left nothing behind them but an uninhabited waste. The war-cry of the Papists, as this Roman Catholic writer, whose authority no Papist will question, a.s.serts, was, "Kill!

kill!" Dr. Gilli relates an instance of great heroism in one of those poor Protestants, who was among the persecuted. One Aymond De La Voye went through the villages, exhorting his brethren to stand firm in the faith of their forefathers. He was soon discovered by the members of the Inquisition. The first question put to him was, "Who are your a.s.sociates?" "My a.s.sociates," he answered, "are those who know and do the will of my Heavenly Father, whether they be n.o.bles, merchants, peasants, or in any other condition." Let it not be forgotten, that this occurred before the sixteenth century, and before the Goths and Vandals of the Reformation, as Brownson calls them, had any existence. One of the Councillors of the Holy Inquisition asked this intrepid man and pious Christian Protestant, "Who is the head of the Church?" He answered, "Jesus Christ" "Is not the Pope the head of the church?"

inquired the inquisitor. "No," was the answer. "Is not the Pope the successor of St. Peter?" "Yes," answered La Voye, "if he is like St.

Peter, but not else." But such was the remarkable intellectual activity of the infallible Church, that no other questions were deemed necessary, and he was immediately consigned to a tormenting death. But the persecutions of these Protestant Christians did not stop here. So remarkable was the intellectual and literary activity of Papists, between the sixth and sixteenth centuries,--that golden age of Popery,--in dispensing its blessing all over the world, that while enormities like those I have related were being perpetrated on the western side of the Alps, a fresh storm was brewing over their brethren of Piedmont.

Will the reader think me tedious, if I give him a more explicit account, taken from Moreland's history of those people, than I myself can give? I take it from Gilli's appendix.

"There is a certain valley in the county of Piedmont, within five or six miles of Mount Vesulo, which, from the town of Lucerna, is called the valley of Lucerna; and in it there is a little valley, which, from Angrogna, a small river running through it, is called the valley Angrogna. Next adjoining to this are two other valleys; that is to say, the valley of Perosa, so called from the town of that name, and the valley of S. Martino. In these there lie divers little towns and villages, whose inhabitants, a.s.sisted by the ministers of G.o.d's word, do make open profession of the gospel.

"Moreover, I suppose that there are near eight thousand faithful souls inhabiting in this place. But among the men, who are bred up to endure labor, seeing they have from their childhood been inured to husbandry, you will find very few who know how to engage in combat. From hence it comes to pa.s.s that very few of them are ready upon any urgent occasion to defend themselves against public injuries. Yea, and the valleys themselves lie so remote from each other, that they cannot help one another till it be too late. And although these towns and villages have their counts or lords, yet the Duke of Savoy is lord over them all.

"This duke, before he came from Nice into Piedmont, diligently took order with those counts and lords of places, that they should admonish the inhabitants to submit to him and the Pope; that is, that, casting off their ministers, they should admit Popish preachers and the abominable ma.s.s. Whereupon our people sent pet.i.tions unto the prince, beseeching him that he would take it in good part if they were resolved rather to die than to lose the true religion of Jesus Christ.... but they shall be ready to amend their errors, if any there were, in case it should be manifested to them out of the word of G.o.d, to which alone they are to submit in this business; and as to what concerneth them in matters of behavior and tributes, and other things due both to him and their other lords, that he would send and make diligent inquiry whether they have at any time committed any offence, that so due punishment may be inflicted on them, because he should a.s.suredly know they are willing to approve themselves with due reverence most obedient to him in all things.

"These pet.i.tions came to the hand of the prince, but availed nothing with him, who was become a sworn enemy with Antichrist against Christ.

Thereupon he sent forth edicts, declaring that those who should be present at the sermons of the ministers of the valley?, if but once, should be fined at one hundred crowns, and if a second time, then they should be condemned to the galleys forever. Orders also were given to a certain judge to ride circuit up and down to put the penalties in execution, and to bind Christians and imprison them. The lords also and magistrates of places had the same power given them, and at length the G.o.dly were by this most impotent prince utterly given up to be plundered by all sorts of villains, and afflicted with most grievous calamities.

"He sent also a certain collateral judge of his own, first to Carignan, there to act inhuman butchery upon the faithful ones of Christ; whereupon he caused one Marcellinus, and Joan his wife, he being a Frenchman, but she a woman of Carignan, to be burnt alive with fire, four days after they had been apprehended. But in this woman G.o.d was pleased to manifest an admirable example of constancy; for, as she was led to execution, she exhorted her husband, saying, 'Well done, my brother, be of good courage; this day doubtless we shall enter together into the joys of heaven.' Some few days after this, there was apprehended also one John Carthignan, an honest, plain man, and truly religious, who, after three days of imprisonment, endured the torments of fire with very great constancy. Who is able to reckon up the several incursions, slaughters, plunders and innumerable miseries, wherewith this most savage generation of men did daily afflict all pious men, because, being exhorted by their ministers to patience, they took no course to defend themselves against injuries! Not long after also they apprehended one John, a Frenchman, and a minister, at a town called St.

Germano, and, carrying him to a certain abbey near Pinerolo, there burnt him alive, who left a n.o.ble example of Christian constancy. The like was done also to the minister of the town of Maine, who was put to death at Susa by a slow fire, while he in the mean time stood as it were immovable, and not being touched with any sense of so incredible a cruelty, having his eyes fixed upon heaven, breathed out his happy soul.

"Therefore, when things were come to this pa.s.s, and these miseries were increased every day more and more, and seeing that the patience and extreme misery of our people could not in any measure allay the fury and rage of these most merciless brutes, they at length resolved by force, as well as they could, to free themselves and their wives and children from that barbarous usage. And although some of our ministers declared it was not well done, yet no admonitions could keep the people from resolving to defend themselves by arms. Hereupon it came to pa.s.s that, several encounters falling out, there fell within a few days about sixty of the plunderers. When news hereof was brought to the tyrant, he commanded his men to forbear, and sent two of his n.o.blemen that so they might bring matters to an accommodation with our people; but when it was perceived that all their drift was that our ministers might be cast out and the Pope received, the people would by no means yield to it Wherefore, when the prince came into Piedmont, and resided at Versello, about the kalends of November, 1660, with intent to destroy all in the valleys by fire and sword, he sent an army of about four thousand foot and two hundred horse, under the command of the duke [count] de la Trinite."

The writer then relates the submissions made by certain deputies whom the Vaudois sent to the duke.

"These false brethren, in design to serve their own private ends, persuaded the people, though almost all the ministers cried out against it, that too easily giving credit to the most false promises of their enemies, laying down their arms, and sending deputies to the prince to promise obedience, they might, for sixteen thousand crowns, redeem both themselves and their religion. As soon as all these things were yielded to and promised by the too credulous people, through a vain hope of obtaining peace and religion, and when our deputies arrived at Versello, they were thence carried by the Lord de la Trinite to a certain cloister, there to abide for two months' s.p.a.ce, (to the end there might be time for collecting the moneys,) and at length, casting themselves down at the feet of the prince and of the Pope's legate, (who were both there, attended by a great number of the n.o.bility, and men of inferior rank,) they were constrained to supplicate the prince first, then the Pope's legate, that they would take pity on the people from whom they were sent, and to promise them, by an oath, that they would be ready to do all things that should be commanded by them.

"The prince therefore growing confident upon this most solemn promise, immediately sent persons to command our people to receive and embrace that horrid idol of the ma.s.s; whereupon, considering the inconstancy of their deputies, and the deceit or rather extreme perfidiousness of the tyrants being discovered, they plainly refused to yield that those things should be ratified which their deputies had unadvisedly transacted, through their own levity, not with the consent of people....

Then the tyrant, as soon as he came to understand this, was much more inflamed than ever before with anger, or rather outrageous fury, against our people; and, collecting a rabble of an army, he gave command to the Lord de la Trinite to waste and destroy all by fire and sword, without any regard of s.e.x or age. Hereupon houses were every where set on fire, nor is there any kind of mischief which was not acted by those most wretched villains; by which means they forced our people, with their wives and children, to have recourse to the more craggy places of the mountains; a thing very lamentable to be seen. For, at the very first a.s.sault, they were in a manner astonished, because, being spoiled both of their arms and goods, living in extreme want of all things, they did not see by what means they might be able to undergo so great and troublesome a war.

"But at length, taking heart and trusting in the mercy and help of G.o.d, of the goodness of their cause, and being confident, because of the impiety and treachery of their adversaries, they resolved once again to defend themselves. To this end they appointed their guards and garrisons, fortified several places, blocked up pa.s.sages, and were wholly resolute upon this point, to die rather than they would in any measure obey a perfidious and wicked prince in so abominable a matter.

But what need many words? Things were come to such a pa.s.s, that in several fights above nine hundred of the enemy were slain, whereas, on our side, hardly fifteen were wanting."

Such was the spirit of Popery during Brownson's thousand years of remarkable intellectual and literary activity! Do you, Americans, wish that the next thousand years of your existence as a nation should be distinguished by a similar intellectual preeminence in mental activity and Christian literature? But, continues Brownson, in his Review of January, 1845, all these things were altered. What things does Brownson mean? The universities? or the remarkable activity of Popish minds between the sixth and sixteenth centuries? Who denies the former? No one who is acquainted with history, or who knows that the world, a large portion of which was then under Popish dominion, needed to be purified from the idolatrous and disastrous doctrines of Popery. The insolence of Brownson is a.s.suredly unequalled. Either that, or his ignorance of history, is unpardonable. "At the period of the English Revolution,"

says this consummate hypocrite, Brownson, "_the ma.s.s of the English people were buried in the grossest ignorance. Even long after, when the Wesleys first started, they talked of the ignorance even of the people of London, as they would of the South Sea Islanders_." This, as we say up here in New Hamps.h.i.+re, beats all. Was it not about this very period that the world gave birth to the ill.u.s.trious Milton? Was it not at this period that Dryden was born? Was it not at this period that the brightest lights of literature that ever illumined the world were s.h.i.+ning in all their glory? I might here give as many names of ill.u.s.trious men and ill.u.s.trious minds as ever adorned humanity; men whose lives were an honor, not only to science, but to religion, to Christianity, and true piety. Did not Erasmus live before the English Reformation? Was he grossly ignorant? Did not Luther live before the Reformation? Neither of those were Papists, but they knew Papist doctrines so well as to break loose from them and appeal to the Christian world to rise as one man and pull down and raze to the ground Popish universities and colleges, as calculated only to cover the world with darkness, by subst.i.tuting the legends of monks for true science, and the decretals of Popes for the Word of G.o.d.

"From the eleventh century," says Brownson, "down to the sixteenth, literature and science received no check." Review of 1845, Jan. No. p.

17. Hear, reader, to this modern Esau, According to him, literature received no check from the years 1100 to 1600. This a.s.sertion is made without any qualification or exception. Does this Brownson believe that his readers are all a parcel of ignoramuses? It cannot be so; he must be aware that he states an untruth, and no man who has ever read history can think otherwise. It would be difficult, I apprehend, to meet a school boy in the United States--I may venture the a.s.sertion, that it would be impossible to find a child in America, over the age of ten or twelve years,--who does not know that the ill.u.s.trious Galileo was born during that very period, and who could not tell, that his glorious discovery of the motion of the earth, not only met with opposition from the Church of Rome, but, that the ruling Pope countenaced his incarceration in the dungeons of the inquisition. Did not the Romish Church claim and enjoy the exclusive honor of striking the first blow at a man and a mind such as the world never saw before? Did not Pope Urban VIII., in 1623, declare and p.r.o.nounce the motion of the earth to be perverse in the highest degree? It was about this time, as a living writer observes, that the whole Catholic Church looked upon all the earth as a condemned world. This absurdity was rejected by Galileo. He established an equality between heaven and earth. He showed that the latter is subject to the same laws and floats in the same splendor as the former; he put serenity and life in the place of mystical theory.

For this he was opposed by Popish priests, the sworn enemies of science and literature. See, as the same writer observes, this venerable man, Galileo,--this good man, seventy years old, on his knees, barefooted and stripped to his s.h.i.+rt, before the officers of the holy inquisition; and for what? He tells you himself, in a letter to one of his friends.

"They--the inquisitors--look upon my book as more abominable and pernicious to the Church than the writings of Luther." Look at him! you Brownson, thou contemptible cat's-paw of Popery, and say--if your heart has not been seared against the truth with something hotter than the hottest iron--whether literature and science did not receive a check, in the persecutions which your infallible church inflicted upon this great man? "The four hundred years which preceded the Reformation," says Brown-son, "were ages of prodigious activity. In them we meet with the great name of Abelard, under whom Heloisa studied philosophy." Mr.

Brownson forgot, I presume, to inform us that he also taught Heloisa moral philosophy. In this latter science she was eminently skilful, and left the world some evidence, at least, of her not being an inapt scholar in the doctrines of genuine Popery. The great changeling, Brownson, could not give more ill.u.s.trative examples of the beauties of Popery and of the advantages to be derived from a course of education at their schools, than that of Abelard and Heloisa; but he need not have gone so far from home for examples of this kind. There are hundreds of them to be found in the United States. We have schools, such as that which Abelard kept, and to which, Brownson tells us, "great flocks fled for education." One of these schools, my readers may recollect, recently flourished on Mount Benedict, Charlestown, Ma.s.s. Abelard, as every reader must recollect, lived in the twelfth century--at the very period, when, according to the great changeling--the Popish Church displayed her remarkable activity of mind in science and literature. Abelard was a learned doctor in the Church of Rome. He was, of course, a confessor; he boarded in the house of a Popish canon in Paris, whose name was Fulbert.

This canon had a niece called Heloisa, whom he was anxious to send to a fas.h.i.+onable school and bring up in the doctrines of the infallible Church of Rome. Accordingly he sent Heloisa to attend the lectures of the pious and G.o.d-like Abelard, just as many of our American mothers, with the advice and consent of their lords and masters, send their children in this country to be educated, to Popish seminaries, kept by pious priests and saint-like nuns. Heloisa had not gone long to confession, when Abelard, her confessor, seduced her and prevailed upon the poor unthinking girl to become his mistress. In order to conceal this atrocious conduct and finding his dupe likely to become a mother, he sent her to a sister of his who lived at a considerable distance, where she was delivered of a son. It is said, that to appease Fulbert, the uncle of this victim of seduction and priestcraft, Abelard consented to marry his victim privately; but no sooner was he married and the anger of the uncle partially appeased, than he sent her to a monastery or nunnery and compelled her to take a religious habit; thus adding treachery to crime and requiting a pure and simple-minded girl's love, by additional ingrat.i.tude and villany. But the poor girl had many friends besides the uncle, who, seeing the cruel manner in which Abelard treated her, determined upon revenge, and they had it They surrounded his chamber at night, and took from his bed this man whom Brownson would hold up to Americans as a model teacher of morality, and had him emasculated. All this was done in the twelfth century. This was one of the great men whom the church produced in Brownson's golden age of Popery.

But what else could be expected of this Brownson? What else could be expected from any man who would hold and profess such sentiments as the following, which we find in his Review of 1840. "For our part," says the great changeling, Brownson, "we yield to none, in our reverence for science and religion; but we confess that we look not for the regeneration of the race from priests and pedagogues." Very respectful language, especially from one who has been a priest and pedagogue himself! "They,--the priests," continues Brownson--"have had a fair trial. They,--the priests--cannot construct the temple of G.o.d. They--the priests--cannot conceive its plan. They--the priests--know not how to build it They--the priests--daub with untempered mortar, and the walls they erect tumble down if so much as a fox attempt to go up thereon. We have no faith in priests and pedagogues," says Brownson; "they merely cry peace, when there is no peace and there can be none." Again the same traitor to G.o.d and religion, thus spews forth his Popish hatred to pure Christianity. "One might as well undertake to dip the ocean dry with a clam sh.e.l.l, as to undertake to cure the evils of the social state by converting men to Christianity." "For our part," continues Brownson, in another page of his Review, "we are disposed to seek the cause of the inequality of the conditions of which we speak, in religion, and to charge it to the priesthood. Rarely do we find, in any age or country, a man feeling himself commissioned to labor for a social reform, who does not feel that he must begin it by making war upon the priesthood. Indeed it is felt at once, that no reform can be effected without resisting the priests and emanc.i.p.ating the people from their power. Historical research, we apprehend, will be found to justify this instinct, and to authorize eternal hostility to the priesthood. Again, when once the cla.s.s--that is, the cla.s.s of priests--has become somewhat numerous, it labors to secure to itself distinction, and increases them. Hence the establishment of priesthoods or sacerdotal corporations, such as the Egyptian, the Braminical, the Ethiopian, the Jewish, the Scandinavian, the Druidical, the Mexican and Peruvian." Fie! fie! Mr. Brownson, the Mexicans belong to the Infallible Church, and like yourself, are strict members thereof. "These sacerdotal corporations," continues Brownson, "are variously organized, but everywhere organized for the purpose of monopolizing power and profit. The real idea at the bottom of these inst.i.tutions, is only to enslave the ma.s.s of the people to the priests, who, by pretending, honestly or not, to possess the secret of rendering the G.o.ds propitious, are able to reduce the people to the most wretched subjection, and keep them there, at least for a time." At page 384, of Brownson's Review, of July, 1840, we find the following sweeping anathema against the Christian priesthood--not in the United States alone, but all over the world--and I would defy the most learned historian or impatient infidel upon earth, to produce any thing more blasphemous or more calculated to disturb the peace of man or the good order of society. "But, having traced the inequality we complain of, to its origin, we proceed to ask again, what is the remedy? The remedy is first to be sought in the destruction of the priest. The bad must be removed before the good can be introduced--conviction and repentance precede regeneration; Christianity is the sublimest protest against the priesthood ever uttered, either by G.o.d or man. In the person of Jesus, both G.o.d and man protest against the priesthood. What was the mission of Jesus but a solemn summons to judgment, and of the human race to freedom. He--Jesus--inst.i.tuted himself no priesthood, no form of religions wors.h.i.+p. He recognized no priest but a holy life, and commanded the construction of no temple but that of a pure heart." Take care, Brownson! don't let the Pope hear you. "He---Jesus--preached no form of religion." Take heed again! Did he not preach the religion of the Romish Church, think you? Have a care! you will commit yourself, unless I occasionally caution you. "He--Jesus--enjoined no creed." What, sir!

not even that of the Pope of Rome? "He--Jesus--set apart no day for religious wors.h.i.+p." Not a single one of those numerous holy days which the Infallible Church sanctions? "The priest is universally a tyrant, universally the enslaver of his brethren, and therefore it is that Christianity condemns them. Christianity could not prevent the establishment of a hierarchy, but it prepared for its ultimate destruction by insisting on the celibacy of the clergy." Really, friend Brownson, I am beginning to tremble for your safety in the Popish Church. "Again," says Brownson, in his Review of the same year, page 336, "we insist upon it"--remember, reader, that Brownson is the mouth-piece to Popery in the United States,--"that the complete and final destruction of the priestly order in every practical sense of the word priest, is the first step to be taken towards elevating 'the laboring' cla.s.ses" Pray, Mr. Brownson, what shall we do with the ten thousand Romish priests which are to be found at the present time in the city of Mexico alone? Has the infallible Church concluded to s.h.i.+p them to our western States? "Priests," says Brownson, "are necessary enemies to freedom; all reason demonstrates this, and all history proves it."

Look out, sir! you 're committing yourself again. Where are all those colleges you speak of as having been established between the sixth and sixteenth centuries, and in which you say was displayed a remarkable activity in science and literature? Nothing better than asylums or schools, for the education of men in such sciences as were calculated to overthrow the freedom of man. I told you so a while ago, and proved it too. All reason demonstrates this and all history proves it.

Again, Brownson says, in the same page of his Review, "There must be no cla.s.s of men set apart and authorized, either by law or fas.h.i.+on, to speak to us in the name of G.o.d, or to be the interpreters of the word of G.o.d." Is it so, indeed, Mr. Brownson? I thought the Pope was authorized to do so, and that he and his church were especially empowered, to the exclusion of all, without distinction, to interpret the word of G.o.d. The word of G.o.d, you say again, "never drops from the priest's lips." What!

do you mean to say that the word of G.o.d never drops from the Pope's lips? Rest a.s.sured, my worthy friend, that if you repeat that again to Bishop Fenwick, he will put you on short allowance. "The priests were always a let and hindrance to the spread of truth." a.s.suredly you cannot mean the Romish priests. You tell us, in your Review of this year, that the four hundred years which preceded the Reformation were ages of prodigious activity, and that during that time Abelard, St Bernard, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas, were remarkable men. All these were priests; yet you say that priests have always been the enemies of freedom, and a let and hindrance to the spread of truth. You thought, the other day, that these were good men and learned men, especially Abelard. What do you think of them, now that you have become a Roman Catholic? You believe all of them to be saints, and you know many of them have been canonized. We have not your opinion of them since July, 1840. Let us hear what you thought of them then. We quote from page 387 of your Quarterly of that year. You ask the following question yourself, and you also answer it. Here are your words, viz: "What are the priests of Christendom, as they now are? Miserable panders to the prejudices of the age; loud in condemning sins n.o.body is guilty of, but miserable cowards when it is necessary to speak out for G.o.d. They are dumb dogs; as a body, they never preach a truth till there is no one whom it will indict; the imbecility of an organized priesthood, and its power to demoralize the people, is beginning to be seen; we have had enough of Christianity" Have you, indeed, Mr. Brown-son? Well, we have not; therein you and I differ. "Christianity," says Brownson, in the next line, "is powerless for good, but by no means powerless for evil; it now unmans us, and hinders the growth of G.o.d's kingdom." It is high time, brother Fenwick, that I should wish you joy. You have an acquisition to your church, in the great changeling Brownson, and you show a depth of wisdom rarely to-be found now-a-days, except among Jesuits, in sending your convert Brownson all over this country, to preach the pure and unsullied doctrines of your Infallible Church; your apostle Brownson is a.s.suredly a fit man for your purposes. History does not inform us that there is a solitary instance since the establishment of your church, of any government having escaped its machinations; and worse than purblind indeed must that mail be, who cannot see at a glance that the primary object which Popish bishops have in commissioning this heartless, unprincipled infidel Brownson to go abroad lecturing among the happy people of this country, is to disturb the present order of society, and finally to overthrow this government, and erect upon its ruins the Papal throne.

This Brownson is unquestionably an object of great pity, or well-merited contempt I could turn from the bare mention of his name with nausea and disgust It is but a few months since that he represented the whole system of Christianity as a gross imposition upon mankind, and our holy religion one of the blackest impositions that ever was practised upon our race. But now he has become a Roman Catholic. Now that he is in the pay of the Pope and his Jesuits, like another Esau he turns round, betraying everything that he ever professed, and pretends to discover that in the Church of Rome are to be found all the elements of pure Christianity; that her priests are an exception to the great body of those priests against whom he p.r.o.nounced his anathema a while ago.

How many months is it, Mr. Brownson, since you became a Papist, and found out that you had been all your life a victim of delusion and Protestant priestcraft? Ten, twelve, or eighteen, is it? Well, suppose it is. Is that enough to give you a thorough knowledge of Popery, and to satisfy you that the Popish Church is composed of purer materials than any of those numerous churches in which you have believed successively and alternately for the last thirty years, and from each of which you have been successively expelled and excommunicated? For, as you tell us yourself, in your Quarterly Review, so infamous and infidel were your principles, that even the Universalists could not tolerate you amongst them, and excommunicated you from their communion without one dissenting voice. So notoriously profligate and abandoned did they consider you, in mind, sentiment, thought, and language, that although their doctrine teaches them that Christ died for all, and that all are to be saved through him, they excepted you, and you alone, as far as I am aware.

Wide as the range of that belief is, all-comprehensive as their charity is, and all-sufficient for the salvation of man as they believe the death of Christ to be, yet they could not believe that you were ent.i.tled to any benefit from it, and accordingly they formally excommunicated you. I can tell you, Mr. Brownson, that you have taken a false step, in your last move; you have plunged thoughtlessly into the labyrinth of Popery, without knowing any thing of its intricacies, certainly not enough to say much for or against. As yet you have scarcely been admitted behind the curtain of this vast theatre in which you have engaged to play a character. And believe me when I a.s.sure you that if you have undertaken any other part than that of a buffoon, you will be hissed off the boards before long. You may, perhaps, soon be let into the green room of the vast Popish theatre where you have made a short engagement, and there some of the machinery of Popery may be opened to your view. But mind what I tell you; when you see the hidden and concealed springs, the wheel within wheel, and the dirty workmen who set them in motion, you will behold sights and experience a stench which will strike you with an offensiveness as loathing and disgusting as if you had put your head into a common sewer. Nothing will you see there but covetous-ness, the weakest vanity, and the most unrestrained indulgence of the vilest pa.s.sions--one general system of artifice and intrigue for power and opportunities for debauching females. Never before could I realize the belief that man was so entirely and totally corrupt as he is, until I was admitted as a Popish priest into the theatre and great machine-shop of Popery.

I have already given to the public some of those scenes which were witnessed by me in the Romish Church. They were new to some, and--as I expected--incredible to many Americans: but Americans--at least the well-informed amongst them--ought to know that I have related nothing new, or at least very little. My revelations have had, in point of fact and substantially, full publicity many years before my birth. The very facts I have stated had long been registered in the archives of literature, and might have been found on the shelves of the libraries of our own country. Some of them have been published by me with the sole view of scattering them amid our people in such form and at such a price as may be acceptable and accessible to all. Many of my statements might have seemed dark and cloudy, but truth and justice compel me to say that they were nothing in comparison with those which are to come. They bear no more likeness to what I shall give hereafter, than the fleeting clouds which we see floating here and there, denoting the approach of a storm, bear to the storm itself. But alas! I fear that it is perfectly useless for me to attempt to awaken the American mind to a due sense of the dangers to be apprehended from the introduction of Popery among us.

The general answer which I receive to all my warnings is, "We care not for what Papists can do; we are a free people." It would be useless to reply to such childish argument as this, nor shall I attempt it; but I feel really humiliated at seeing such a people as the free citizens of the United States permitting themselves to be deluded, and the minds of their children poisoned by such doctrines as are preached by the infidel Brownson, now employed by the Pope of Rome, as the apostle of Popery in this country. It is also a source of deep regret to me to see Roman Catholics, especially the poor Irish, who owe this country more than any other people in the world, become its deadliest foes, and ready at the beck of their tyrant priests and bishops to trample under foot its glorious const.i.tution, which guarantees to them what they never had before, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equal rights.

"_Americans shant rule us_," say this poor, misguided people, the Irish.

This drives me, _nolens volens_, to a farther exposure of some of the deceptions practised upon them and upon mankind in general, by faithless Romish priests, trusting, in the mercy of Providence, that if I can show them that they are deceived in one way by their priests, it may put them on their guard in future against further deception.

I will now return to, or rather resume the consideration of, the doctrine of _auricular confession_, which formed in part the subject of the first volume of this work.

Before I enter on the disgusting subject of auricular confession, let me give the reader an idea of how it is made. And lest it may be questioned whether the form I herein give is correct, I shall give it first in Latin, and then in English, and appeal to any Roman Catholic priest or bishop in the world, whether so far I misstate or misrepresent facts.

The following is the form:

"Confiteor Deo omnipotenti beatas Marias semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Johanni Baptistae, Sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, omnibus Sanctis et (tibi Pater) quia peccavi nimis cogitatione verbo et opere (pectus) mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelum Archangelum, beatum Johannem Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum, omnes sanctos et (Pater) orane pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum."

Translation of the Above: