niary interest, by their love of promotion, as well as by the most sacred pledges and solemn oaths of consecration, to serve to the best of their ability a foreign despot; that they, to all intents and purposes, constitute the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, the laity having no voice; moreover, the American bishops not being chosen by their clergy or cathedral chapters, as they are in some countries, but being appointed at the mere pleasure of the Pope, are among the most zealous supporters of the extreme ultramontane principles of Popery. This zealous devotion of the American bishops to Roman intolerance and despotism, has been so decided and outspoken as to have recently called forth an expression of surprise from the liberal press of Germany. We venture to say that the influence of the Court of Rome over the Episcopal body in this country is stronger than it is over the bishops of any other part of the world. This hierarchy, which is a sort of politico-ecclesiastical organization, controlled by a foreign despot, and banded together, and bound by oaths and obligations such as are unknown to any other denomination, controls and directs the laity absolutely according to its own will.

This is what gives them their immense power. This constitutes the secret of their success. While Protestants are split up into various or

ganizations, and are divided in their political views, and consequently in their action, the Romanists are a unit, and are moving on under their leaders with the precision of trained battalions to the subversion of our liberties. Just as ten thousand men properly drilled, equipped and officered, would be more than a match for a hundred thousand that were wanting in all these things, so the Roman Catholics, notwithstanding the smallness of their number when compared to Protestants, yet through their superior drill and union of efforts are securing victory after victory. If Protestants should fail to wake up to the danger that threatens to overwhelm them, it is not difficult to foretell the end.

Another source of evil and cause of alarm is the fraternity of Jesuits, who at this very time are swarming in our land. They, as we have seen, are the sworn enemies of our free institutions. This society, which has been notorious throughout the world for its infamy, and which has been expelled for political intrigue from almost every government in Europe, more than thirty times a fact unparalleled in the history of the wickedest combination ever formed beside against which, in former times, such a storm of indignation arose on every side, that Pope Clement IX. in a bull suppressed the order altogether in these words, "So that the name of the company shall be, and is, forever extinguish

ed and suppressed." Yet this hateful Order was, in spite of Roman infallibility, restored by a counter bull of Pope Pius VII., and now is the right arm of the Papacy in this country.

And now the great question that looms up before us in the moral horizon is, shall we yield this glorious country of ours, our free institutions purchased by the blood of our forefathers, our religious liberties planted amid suffering by our noble sires, and all that we as Protestants hold dear, shall we give up all these without a struggle? Shall we not rather forget our differences, and unite our forces to oppose, and if possible to roll back this foreign aggression, this tide of spiritual despotism, that threatens to overwhelm us? We admire a hopeful spirit, and deprecate despondency and every false alarm; but there are times when to cry peace and safety, is the rankest treason, is certain suicide. Such a time we believe has now arrived; that the Philistines are already upon us; that our religious liberties are at stake. This is not mere fancy. That to save our Protestant institutions will involve a mighty struggle, a terrible conflict, is no longer a conjecture, or a probability, but to many minds, an absolute certainty.

CHAPTER VI.

Romanists versus Public Schools.

THE dogmatical, intolerant, and anti-Scriptural spirit of Popery, that has all through the past sought to subject to its absolute power and control, the entire human race, soul and body, for time and eternity, in order to build up an odious despotism; and which has arrayed her against the Bible, against free institutions, against liberty of conscience, against the spirit of scientific progress, and against all the live forces and tendencies of the present age, has very naturally arrayed her against our public school system in these United States. In this attempt of Rome to break down and overthrow our educational institutions, she is but acting in accordance with her long settled policy of subjecting every thing to herself. Our public schools have never pleased the Romish hierarchs, and never can. Modify them as we may, they will be offensive to them, so long as they cannot use them in their own interest. This fact may as well be understood first as last.

"We hold education to be a function of the Church, not of the State; and in our case, we do not, and we will not, accept the State as educator."—Tablet, Dec. 25.

On a recent trial in Ireland, a priest testified that he had positive orders from Archbishop MacHale to refuse all the sacraments, even at the hour of death, to those who send their children to the free schools. The same spirit is now manifesting itself in our midst against our own schools, not against their present form, but against the entire system. The expressed willingness of many Protestants to banish the Bible from our public schools, in order to conciliate Romanists, while it accomplishes nothing, is far more complimentary to their hearts than to their heads. Nor has the proposition of others to introduce the Roman Catholic translation of the Scriptures into our common schools, met with any better success in diminishing their hostility to our educational system.

"We tell our respected contemporary, therefore, that if the Catholic translation of the Book of Holy Writ * * * were to be dissected by the ablest Catholic theologian in the land, and merely lessons to be taken from it-with all the notes and comments, in the popular edition, and others added, with the highest Catholic endorsement-and if these admirable Bible lessons, and these alone, were to be ruled as to be read in all the public schools, this would not diminish, in any substantial degree, the objections we Catholics have to letting Catholic children attend the public schools. *** There is no possible programme of common school instruction that the Catholic Church can permit her children to accept."-Freeman's Journal, Nov. 20.