Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight

hundred and seventy-one,

By J. J. SMITH,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

job 1 Red, Primer, 43

JOHN JRED, Printer, 43 Centre St., New York.

PREFACE.

THIS Volume is intended to meet a public necessity, and is consequently a book for the times. It deals not with fiction, but with facts. It presents not theories, but inculcates action. Its origin is soon told. The attempt of Papists to expel the Bible from our Public Schools, and their outspoken denunciation of our entire common school system, elicited from me, about a year ago, a series of letters on our danger as a nation, from the aggressive spirit and policy` of Romanism as being developed in our midst. These papers were first published in the Methodist Recorder. Several of my friends, whose mature judgments challenge my confidence, having expressed a wish, by letters and otherwise, to have those articles issued in book-form for more general circulation, constitute my apology, if apology be needed, for this publication.

The original letters have been enlarged, and nearly as many more chapters have been added, so as to cover most of the ground embraced in the questions involved. The reader will see in these pages that our controversy is with Popery as a system, which is, from its inherent nature,