March 1, 1894
IT is well worth while to take a look at the facilities which are all made ready to Rome’s hands, and which she can use in effecting her purpose to take possession of the Government and people of the United States.
THE chiefest of these is the apostasy of professed Protestants, which has so blinded their eyes that they cannot see that Rome is now what she always was, but causes them to insist always that she has become enlightened, liberalized, modernized, and Americanized, and is therefore to be, not only implicitly trusted, but aided and admired.
CLOSELY akin to this apostasy, in fact the direct descendant of it, is the cowardice of professed Protestants in all things wherein Rome is prominent. We use the word cowardice advisedly, for no such word as apathy or listlessness will in any sense fit the case. No word but the word cowardice will properly characterize the course of many, very many, professed Protestants who have not gone so far in apostasy as, like the Independent and its kind, to be the apologists, the aiders, and the abettors of Rome.
FOR those, who have not gone so far as that in apostasy, do see many of the encroachments of Rome which seriously threaten the peace of the country and the liberties of the people, and do even acknowledge that they see these things; yet they have not the courage to expose these encroachments and follow them up as the cause deserves, and even acknowledge that they have not the courage to do so. This is the truth, as we personally know it. As one preacher, who by request had prepared and read, in a ministers’ meeting, a paper on “Romish Aggressions in the United States,” said afterward, “Yes, that is all true, but I don’t propose to make a crank of myself by following it up publicly. I prepared that paper because I was requested to do so for the occasion, and that is all I shall do about it.”
THE treatment which Bishop Coxe’s “Letters to Satolli,” received, and which the bishop himself received on account of them, from professed Protestants, is a good illustration of what we are calling attention to. The best portions of his most important letter to Satolli, we reprinted in these columns, January 11, 1894. Anybody who is not totally blinded by Romish gloom, can see that Bishop Coxe stated the exact truth with regard to Mr. Satolli’s mission, and place, and work here. It was to be expected as a matter of course that confessed Catholics would resent and denounce and ridicule both Bishop Coxe and his statements. But as a matter of fact professed Protestants did the same thing, who could muster up courage to speak on the subject at all, and practically all the rest simply said nothing. This shows that he who would openly oppose Rome and her mischievous workings must also meet the opposition of professed Protestantism. Professed Protestant papers ridiculed the bishop’s statements, and rebuked the bishop himself for his “discourteous” and “disrespectful” address to Mr. Satolli. If those persons had lived in Luther’s day they would have done the same things toward him for his plain and disrespectful “open letters” etc., to Leo X., and Henry VIII., and others of their ilk. All of which only shows how completely degenerate is the professed Protestantism of to-day.
IT is true that, as we pointed out at the time, although Bishop Coxe’s sounding of an alarm was truly put and perfectly appropriate in itself, yet it is really robbed of its force from him by the fact of the bishop’s unfortunate connection with the religio-political movement of professed Protestants which committed the Government of the United States to the guardianship of religion, and so created the occasion for Satolli’s mission and work here. But commending and emphasizing the bishop’s statements with reference to Rome’s aggression and mischievous workings here, while pointing out his unfortunate position,—this is a vastly different thing from ridiculing his statements and rebuking him for discourtesy and disrespect to Satolli and Rome. One is Protestantism of the strictest and most consistent sort; while the other is everything else than true Protestantism of any sort. So long, therefore, as one class of professed Protestants are the constant apologists, aiders, and abettors of Rome; and another class are afraid to make public what they actually see and know of Rome’s mischievous designs; and yet another class are so completely handicapped by their own conduct as to destroy the effect of what they do say against Rome’s designs—these three classes forming the vast majority of professed Protestants,—it is evident that, so far as Protestantism is concerned, Rome has practically a clear field in which to push herself forward to full possession of the country and all that is in it.
IN addition to this, it is the plain truth that Rome practically controls the press of the whole country. All the leading publications throughout the land are controlled directly, by being owned, or managed, or edited by Catholics; or indirectly by fear of Rome’s influence against those who do own, or manage, or edit them if anything were printed therein which should incur her displeasure. So that it is next to impossible to get into any prominent publication any kind of a fair statement of the case against Rome and her workings in the United States. If any one doubts this he can find it demonstrated to his satisfaction by simply trying it. So certainly is this so, that any paper that devotes any material portion of its space to this subject loses caste at once and is set down as a “disturber of the peace,” a “sower of discord,” and “a stirrer up of civil and religious strife.” So that, therefore, so far as the press of the country is concerned, Rome has also a clear field in which to go forward on her declared missioin of possessing America for herself.
ALL these which we have mentioned, important as they are, are yet but of small moment as compared with the field of law which is as fully open to her as it any of the others.
1. All the States in the Union but two have laws requiring the observance of the very chief of all Rome’s institutions, the [66] very sign and acknowledgement of her “infallible” authority,—the Sunday. So that here is all prepared, ready to her hand, the machinery by which she can compel all to do her bidding in this respect just as soon as she chooses to exercise the power—and until she gets ready to exercise this power herself there are plenty of papalized Protestants who are willing to run the machinery for her, as numerous instances in Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland, Georgia and other places have abundantly proved.
2. There has been established in the law-procedure of the United States the despotic doctrine that a thing that is “harmless in itself” may be forbidden “as tending to a breach of the peace.” Now, the only possible way that an action which is harmless in itself, could tend to a breach of the peace is in having abroad somebody who is of such an overbearing, such a meddling, such a tyrannical, disposition, that anything that does not exactly suit him, even though it be admittedly harmless in itself, so excites the devil in him that he must attack the harmless doer. Thus a breach of the peace is committed. And so to prevent any such breach of the peace in the future, instead of punishing the breaker of the peace, a law must be enacted prohibiting all persons from doing any more that thing which is harmless in itself!! And this because it tends to a breach of the peace! The innocent citizen must be made a slave, and the tyrannical meddler must be clothed with power over him. And this because his harmless deeds “tend to a breech of the peace”!!
That is an established doctrine in the judicial system and procedure of the United States. And now the Catholic Church is putting into practice the doctrine, whenever opportunity offers, to prohibit the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution. When a public speaker says anything that Rome does not like, she raises a riot. And then the speaker is arrested and prosecuted for breach of the peace or inciting to riot, and is forbidden to speak any more on any such subject.
And this is the doctrine that is now plainly taught to Catholics in the United States. “Father” Thomas Sherman—son of the late General Sherman—a Jesuit priest, wrote a lecture against organizations opposed to Rome, which was to be delivered, presumably, to Catholics alone, but a page of it, by mistake, got among the manuscript of another lecture which he delivered publicly, and was printed in the Chicago Herald of February 6 and 7, 1894. In this page he was dealing with ex-priests, and he sets forth what should be done with them in the following Catholic, Jesuitical, and judicial style:—
For my own part I have no apology to offer for the acts of Catholics in rigorous protest against those wholesale vendors of infamy. The father who slays the corrupter of his child must be left to the Almighty. The man who shoots an anarchist by right is a public benefactor. These ex-priests are anarchists of the worst stamp. They appeal to free speech. If free speech means the right to debauch the minds of youth and children at pleasure, then I, for one, say better free bullets than free speech. If America will not draw the line between freedom and license, then America means chaos and old night. There is no right to do public wrong, and every town and village must prevent it. Sue for libel. The evil is done when the evil is begun. Of course I know you will not agree with me, but if the blight of corruption were to threaten your own you would act as the principle of prevention. There are certain questions that cannot be touched in public without doing great harm. The State exists to preserve public morality.
And the Western Watchman, the official Catholic paper of St. Louis, of Jan. 25, 1894, gives similar advice, thus:—
Who came blame them [the riotous Catholics] if they rise up and strike the blasphemers in the mouth? These miscreant travelers should not be protected. If their occupation excites to riot they should be made to choose some other calling. If they cannot be restrained by statute or ordinance, let them carry their hides to the market; and it they get holed, let it be charged to the profit and loss of the business.
This is the very doctrine that has been established by the courts of the United States, even to the United States Supreme Court, that is, prohibit by law that which is harmless in itself, because it tends to breach of the peace, because it excites to riot! And thus this infamous doctrine of the courts of the United States has put into the hands of Rome the legal means by which she proceeds to abolish freedom of speech in the United States. It is, in fact, her own doctrine, and she is very glad to have it established as a part of the judicial procedure of the United States; and gladly avails herself of it in carrying forward her purpose to possess the nation for herself.
3. Another piece of machinery that is made ready to Rome’s hand and recognized by the courts, and that is being kept in running order by its inventor, is the Inquisition. It is a literal fact that the Inquisition is being carried on, and has been for nearly three years, in this city of New York, and, to some extent, in other places, as Pittsburg and Allegheny. In New York it is better known as “Parkhurstism,” in the other places as “Law and Order League.” This Inquisition is not being carried on yet by Rome, but it is being carried on in Rome’s own way by professed Protestants. For no Inquisition was ever more certainly carried on by any Romanist than this is being carried on by those professed Protestants; and no more Jesuitical methods were ever used in the Romish Inquisition than are being used in this Inquisition by Parkhurst and his crew.
This Inquisitor-General Parkhurst has scattered through this city 1,137 spies—one in each election district—who spend their time not simply in discovering crimes which have been already committed, but in inducing people to commit crimes, and even in committing crime themselves in company of others or on the premises of others, in order to entrap, to prosecute, and to imprison these others. These things are being done straight along by these inquisitors, and the worst feature about it is that the courts give it the support and sanction of the law. Parkhurst himself and his agents have committed and induced—hired—others to commit with them, unnameable indecencies, and then have voluntarily gone into court and unblushingly told of these indecencies in witness against their victims; and the courts, instead of punishing these chief criminals, accept their testimony and imprison their victims. From these the regular police have adopted the practice (not of the indecencies of course, they are not so bad as that) of trapping people into crime, especially by inducing them to sell something on Sunday and then arresting and prosecuting them. And occurrences of this inquisitorial order are as numerous and about as regular as the recurrence of the days. And it is evident from the whole procedure that the Inquisition was never more certainly conducted by Rome herself, than this Inquisition is being conducted by professed Protestants. And when Rome gets ready to conduct the machine herself, she can do so no more certainly, though she may do so more cruelly, than these professed Protestants are now doing. And thus it is that professed Protestants have established and put in working order, ready for the hands of Rome, the very Inquisition itself.
AND so, from first to last, there is a clear field open to the papacy to advance to the full possession of the country. The facilities are at hand and in working order, and ready for the papacy to use as soon as she gets ready, and until she does get ready professed Protestants are keeping all these facilities well prepared to her hand. And it is a shameful procedure, as well as a deplorable situation.
A. T. J.