January 11, 1894
MR. SATOLLI, Archbishop of Lepanto, in Italy, is permanently established at the capital of the United States, as the substitute of Pope Leo XIII.
MR. ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Western New York, has his official seat in the city of Buffalo, in this State.
MR. COXE does not like it, that Mr. Satolli is at Washington or any place else in this country for the purpose for which plainly he is here. And Mr. Coxe has lately been telling Mr. Satolli so, in some open letters published in the newspapers.
OF course, Mr. Satolli being firmly seated at the national capital, and being in possession of immense power, which he can use as he pleases in national affairs, does not care whether Mr. Coxe, who has comparatively no place and absolutely no power, likes or dislikes his presence here.
HOWEVER, Bishop Coxe tells some wholesome truths, states some important facts, and exposes some startling situations which are worthy of most serious thought by the American people, whatever Mr. Satolli may think of his communications. Though the bishop’s statements are in themselves true enough and worthy of serious thought, yet coming from him they are robbed of their force, as will be seen further on, by the compromising attitude which he holds toward Mr. Satolli’s place and power here.
WE shall present liberal extracts from Bishop Coxe’s principal letter, not only for the value of the extracts themselves, but also because this matter furnishes such an excellent opportunity to point an important moral for the consideration of vast numbers of people, besides Bishop Coxe, who are personally interested in more ways than one. Last week we printed statements from Leo XIII, Satolli, and Catholic documents, which gave, in their own words, the purpose and aim of Satolli’s establishment here, and also Rome’s estimate of her position and power in this country. Our extracts from Bishop Coxe’s letters will be also interesting when read in view of our discussion on this line in last week’s SENTINEL.
AFTER mentioning some points from the past as between France and the Church of Rome, the bishop asks Mr. Satolli to take a look at himself in the mirror of these things, and proceeds as follows:—
After considerable pulse-feeling as to the admission of a nuncio at Washington; after strong denials of any such idea; after evasions and experiments and contradictions by the press; after your preliminary visit to this country and your exulting report abroad, that persons of your quality are here received and treated “like sovereign princes;” you arrived here last year just before our great presidential crisis and were received, indeed, “like sovereign princes.” The politicians managed to get up a reception for you in a national vessel. You were landed in New York like another La Fayette. Monetary objections were removed by explanations that “it was only as a visitor to the great Exposition at Chicago” that such a reception was tendered to you! Of course; no doubt! Who can imagine any other motive? But, all the same, you have ever since posed not as a visitor to Chicago, but as a sovereign prince and a general meddler with affairs everywhere and chiefly among Jesuits at the national capital.
But even had you confined your attention to their immediate concerns, you could not but entangle them more and more, and make affairs worse and worse, with respect to their relations with their countrymen. Your interposition is a wedge, which, if it has divided them into fractions, is not less likely to split our entire population into embittered and hostile camps, endangering a social war. Your apologists assert your great friendship for everything in America, and your disposition to settle everything, in our behalf, so as to prevent future disturbances. As to the future, I am not so sanguine, especially when I observe that even your concessions are pro tempore. They are a temporary sop to the American Constitution and dust for the eyes of dotards. The Cahensly doctrine is reserved for a time when things shall be right for its enforcement. The “Syllabus” settles that. The Roman court consents never to enforce its dogmas by persecution—where it is not strong enough.
Hildebrand himself was equally pacific in such cases. “But see,” cry the newspapers, “how liberal the modern papacy has become.” Just so! It will not put us into the Inquisition—till we are first drugged and then chained.
The aggressions of the Roman court upon the liberties of nations have always been begun by this sort of liberality. “Concede, that you may exact.” Such is the inveterate maxim of the pontiffs. Concessions once accepted with thanks, the principle of intervention becomes an established fact. It grows and becomes a nuisance. Then it is too late. The people remonstrate; they try to break loose, but no, as in Esop’s fable, the horse has called in a rider to revenge him on other beasts. The plan succeeds, and now with expressions of obligation, the rider is requested to dismount. But not so. He is firm in his saddle; has a bridle in the horse’s jaws; and has spurs and a whip besides. The “ablegate” is a fixture in his seat, and let the horse throw him if he can.
THIS is as complete a statement as could be made of the plans and the situation of Rome with respect to the United States Government to-day. And the statement is complete even to the full meaning of the fable cited. In fact, it is the citation of the fable, especially by Bishop Coxe, which gives point to the whole statement. The statement would be incomplete without the fable. It is true that Rome, in her “ablegate,” is a fixture in the American saddle, with the Romish bridle in the horse’s mouth, and spurs and whip besides. And it is equally true that Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Western New York, helped to put the American horse in this place under the Romish rider. Bishop Coxe took a part in calling in this papal rider for the American horse to revenge him on the other beasts. And now the bishop asks the rider to “dismount.” But no, “the ablegate is a fixture in his seat, and let the horse throw him if he can.”
LET us have the evidence on this point. The United States Government was established, with the total separation of religion and the State. It was one of the fundamental principles of the Government that it should never recognize any religion in any way, and never by any governmental act have anything to do with any religion, and specifically the Christian religion. And this Government was established upon this principle for the definitely expressed purpose that the American people should not be led back to the Church of Rome, that the American people might be kept forever free from the domination of Rome and of popery. This was the perfect freedom and the glory of the American governmental horse.
BUT for years there has been a powerful combination which has endeavored to persuade this perfectly free and powerful [10] horse that he needed a religious rider, so that he might properly be revenged on certain other “atheistic” and “godless” beasts, and chiefly that particular beast called “Sabbath-breaking.” To make their persuasions more forcible, this combination called to its aid the Catholic Church. This being precisely what Rome wanted most of all, she gladly accepted the call, and prepared to mount as soon as the horse should be persuaded by the other parties to accept the proffered rider. By diligence and persistent effort, and at last under threats, the horse was “persuaded” to accept the proffered religious rider, in order that, at the World’s Fair especially, and for all time to come, he might be revenged upon all “ungodly and Sabbath-breaking” beasts. The horse being thus “persuaded” to accept the proffered religious rider, allowed himself to be saddled and bridled, and placed himself in position for the rider to mount. The “Protestant” would-be rider is just placing his foot in the stirrup to seat himself upon the horse, when, lo! Rome, in the person of Satolli, at a single bound, vaults into the saddle, seizes the reins, braces himself in the stirrups, and rides boldly.
AND anybody who will take the time to turn to the Congressional Record of July 12, 1892, pp. 6700-6701, will find the evidence that Bishop Coxe was one of the persons who, in company with Catholic ecclesiastics, had a part in the persuading of this horse to accept a religious rider, and in saddling and bridling him for the rider. There, in the last three inches on page 6700 will be seen the words of Archbishop Ireland, Gross, and Riordan of the Catholic Church, calling for this arrangement. And in the first three or four inches on page 6701 will be found the names of the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church who called for the same thing. And the name of Bishop Coxe, of Western New York, is named among them. All are presented by United States Senator Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut. And now, when the bishop, with the others, sees Rome, in the person of Satolli, instead of themselves, firmly seated in the saddle and riding so boldly, he wildly calls upon him to “dismount.” And by the very force of the situation, Bishop Coxe himself is compelled to answer his own call to dismount. “But not so. He is firm in his saddle; has a bridle in the horse’s mouth jaws, and has spurs and a whip besides. The ‘ablegate’ is a fixture in his seat, and let the horse throw him if he can.” Under the circumstances, Bishop Coxe, and every other “Protestant” who had any part in this awful transaction, should hide his head for very shame, and forever blush to lift up his face in the presence of the American people.
BUT the bishop has more to say, and he says it to the following effect:—
But I have more to say. For you have not confined yourself to matters of education only. You have come to establish an imperium in imperio; a permanent rice-royalty under the eaves of our Capitol. The President of the United States is a citizen who comes and goes. His official residence is no “mansion” or abiding place. He is its guest who tarries but a night. The vice-president has no official house in Washington. Our chief-justice has none. But your visit to Buffalo was prompted (so it was announced) by your gratitude to one of our worthy citizens, who had undertaken to provide a permanent habitation at our capital for the vice-pope. Thus, the one irremovable potentate at Washington is the Roman pontiff, represented by his other self. Queen Victoria, by her viceroy, reigns in India as empress; and henceforth Leo XIII and his successors will enjoy their supremacy on the Potomac far more absolutely than it can be exercised on the Tiber. The servile and illiterate Italians, Polacks, Hungarians, and such like are educated, only so far as the ox that knoweth his owner, and they will furnish votes by thousands to any purchaser who contracts with the vice-pope for the supply. All has been fore-arranged, like the lines at Torres Vedras. The Jesuits are there-in their arsenal, “The University.” The lobby is organized and sacks the treasury. Now, you come as generalissimo. Truly, “in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird,” but the American eagle has been drugged. He is fast asleep.
“Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak, the lightning of his eye.”
But I mean to wake him up. That is my humble task.
VERY good, bishop. But can you wake him up? And, especially, can you wake him up, when you yourself were instrumental in drugging him to his undoing? When your voice was heard, with the others, in luring him off his guard that he might be drugged to helplessness and final death, that same voice can never wake him up. Mr. Coxe, your effort comes too late. And even though you should wake him up, what good can it do? What will Satolli care? What will Rome care? Delilah waked up Samson after she had shorn him of his strength and betrayed him to the Philistines. But what did the Philistines care?—Nay, they were rather glad to have him awakened, that he might know how entirely he was in their power, and how completely he was enslaved. You, Bishop Coxe, with others, have played the part of Delilah to this American Samson, in robbing him of the secret of his strength and betraying him to these Romish Philistines. And now, like Delilah, too, you, you, “mean to wake him up.” Suppose you do, what will these Philistines care? They, too, will be glad to have you do it, that this aforetime noble Samson, may the more certainly know how completely he is shorn of his strength, how entirely he is in their power, and how, blinded and harnessed, he shall be required, slavishly, to tread in the mill of Rome’s evil purposes concerning the world.
SUCH is the result of the efforts of the grand combination formed of the National Reform Association, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Prohibition Party, and the American Sabbath Union, to get “the Christian religion” and “the Christian Sabbath” recognized by the Government of the United States. And every man and woman who favored any branch of this combination, or who sent a petition to Congress for the closing of the World’s Fair on Sunday, or for the recognition of the “Christian Sabbath” or the “Lord’s Day” in any other way, is, with Bishop Coxe, responsible for this shameful and awful result.
A. T. J.