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CHAPTER XI. IN THE LAP OF ROME

In a city cursed with malaria is a cesspool, so large that it spreads contagion through many cellars, up into offices, into stores, and infects the town. In winter, they do not clean it out, because of the cold. In summer, they have another excuse. It is covered with boards. Ever and anon one rots. A horse breaks through and is ruined. A man falls in and dies. Then comes a spasm of indignation, and many declare the cesspool must go; but it stays; it is working mischief.

Romanism is much like it. It poisons the air and affects the health, wherever its virus is inhaled. It is bad, and bad continually. Few care to touch it, or describe it. The cesspool is covered over. It ought to be cleaned out, but it is not. There are reasons why the many fail to attack the error or fight the sin. It controls votes how many, few know. The leaders of the Romish cohort are astute, far-seeing and brave. They work together, strike an organized blow, are conscienceless, and so are never hindered by principle or restrained by honor, rightness or righteousness. They are a bandit against virtue, education and progress. They are not ashamed of it. They will shut the best histories out of the school. There is a spasm. Meetings are held; Rome is attacked, and Rome is silent; but the books stay out, and Protestant teachers turn Catholics for place and pelf, and Rome laughs and moves on, securing the acquiescence, if not the favor, of politicians. So in regard to morality. A man breaks through into the cesspool. He is covered with filth. Romanism is revealed, and the people declare now it must go; but a new board is laid over the hole; lime is thrown in; the stench is killed for the moment, and Rome increases in power. Rome stands by Rome as true men would do well to stand by true men, but as true men seldom do, while the emergency is on, and help is needed.

Why Priests Should Wed,”was written to save women and girls threatened by the filth of the Confessional. Much that is vile, and too filthy to be read with pleasure or profit to the individual perusing it, has been omitted. For this, the author has been blamed by good men and women.”We do not know about it,”they say.”You say, there is a cesspool. You say it is beyond human belief for vileness. We do not have more than the words of men like you. The offensive matter is locked up in Latin. It is beyond our reach. This thing of Romanism concerns Americans. Romanism is doing all in its power to capture the United States. It will succeed, unless the truth be told concerning it.” Such is the view of good Christian men. Romanism is bringing forth as bad fruit in Washington as elsewhere. Assaults are made on virtue. Nunneries are used as assignation houses there as elsewhere, because Romanists live there as elsewhere. This ought to be brought to the attention of the people, if they are to be delivered. It is fashionable to speak of Romanism as a part of the Christian world.

Encyclopedias do it; so do ministers of Evangelical denominations. It is a shame that this is true, yet true it is. Romanism is the”mystery of iniquity.” It is a horrible stench in the nostrils of humanity, borne because of the lack of power to remove it. Hated of God, it is yet to be hated of man. But, in the meantime, the people have a battle to wage with error, and a duty to discharge. Roman ism must be exposed. Uncover the cesspool, and it shall bring upon itself destruction.

In”Why Priests Should Wed,” Dens and Liguori were quoted, and all that could be decently written was put into type, and a challenge was sent forth asking Romanists to deny it, if they could; or for Congress to appoint a Commission to investigate the charges brought against the priesthood of the Roman Catholic church because of the practice of Auricular Confession, and to demand persons and papers competent, in evidence, to declare whether such confessional is calculated to pollute the minds of the people, and undermine the foundation of our Republican institutions. Thousands and tens of thousands of these petitions were signed and sent to and read in the Senate and House of Representatives, and nothing has been done about it.

In the meantime, the author congratulates himself as having”built better than he knew,” because Romanists know what is left out in the blank spaces as Protestants do not, and the effect of the book has been helpful to Romanists, great numbers of whom, because of its appalling revelations, have abandoned Rome forever. It has been charged that, in”Why Priests Should Wed,” the quotations are largely from Dens and Liguori, and not from theologians of the Roman Catholic Church in America. This was because Dens theology has been endorsed by the prelates in Ireland as”the best book on the subject that could be published, as late as Sept. 15th, 1808, and by the Archbishop of St. Louis, Mo., in Feb. 1850,, by Bishop Kenrick of Philadelphia, in 1861 . A thousand dollars reward was offered in 1873 to any Accredited Roman priest or bishop y^ho will disprove the horrible disclosure contained in a book translating the Latin into English and German, from the Secret Theology of Peter Dens and Francis P. Kenrick, published in Chicago, 111. No reply has been made, because a refutation is impossible.

The truth is not hidden; but it is not scattered. Show what Romanists are, what they teach, and how they live, and decent people will cut loose from it; and the President, unless he be lost to all self-esteem and sense of decency, and the respect of mankind, would as soon walk the streets with a painted representative of the house which is”the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death,” as to lock arms with the Red-Robed Cardinal, the representative of the Harlot of the Tiber.

It is not necessary to confine attention to the works of Dens and Liguori. John Hughes, archbishop of New York, and Francis Patrick Kenrick, arch bishop of Philadelphia, have sanctioned all the vileness of the past, and sent forth contributions as vile as any that preceded. These are accessible. In the book,”Theology in Use in the Theological Seminary and Sacred Theology for Students,” by Francis Patrick Kenrick, are descriptions of”adulterers with the mouth” (p. 130) , of the manner in which the marriage bed is to be used and is defiled (1. vi., n. 917), and suggestions concerning intercourse too filthy to be written; of the sin of evading offspring, and the means employed to produce the result; of the guilt of Sodomy, and how the sin is committed between husband and wife (1. vi., n. 916); of the sin of rendering one s-self impotent, and much more in the same strain. PARISH PRIESTS AND OTHER CONFESSORS PROVIDED FOR. Because this is frequently denied, we quote in full;”VIII. Of Luxury. If, however, it should be foreseen that pollution will ensue from some cause that is necessary, or useful, or advantageous to some body, although the mind is averse to it, there is no sin, so long as there is no danger in consenting to it. Hence, even though involuntary pollution should be foreseen, it is proper for

• “1. Parish Priests, and also other confessors, to hear the confessions of women, to read treatises on obscene subjects, to touch the parts of a sick woman, to accost, kiss or embrace women according to the custom of the country, to wait on them in . bathing, and other things of a similar character.
• “2. It is lawful for any one who suffers great itching in the privates, to relieve it by touching, although pollution may follow.
• “3. So also it is useful to ride on horseback for a person, even though pollution should be foreseen,”and much more of the same character.
• “4. It is lawful to lie in any position to rest more conveniently.
• “5. To take warm food or drinks, in moderation, and to lead in decent dances.” {Francis Patrick Kenrick’s Theology, vol. 3, p. 172} Into this lap of Rome, look. The Parish Priest is given absolute control of the bodies of the women of the Roman Catholic church, and of all others he may capture. Liguori grants a priest two women a month. Kenrick permits a lascivious scoundrel to gratify his lustful inclinations. When wife or daughter is the victim, does not the permission given in the theology place the entire church under suspicion? Somebody’s daughter, somebody’s wife shut up with the priest in the Confessional, or in his home, is his victim.

Let us turn now to the”Garden of the Soul,” a prayer-book commonly used in the Roman Catholic churches, and for sale at all Roman Catholic book stores, and commended by Archbishop Hughes, and on pages 213 and 214 are these questions, to be asked by a Roman Catholic priest of any female, from seven up to seventy.

“Have you been guilty of fornication, or adultery, or incest, or any sin against nature, either with a person of the same sex, or with any other creature? How often? Or have you designed or attempted any such sin, or sought to induce others to it? How often?”Have you been guilty of pollution, or immodest touches of yourself? How often?

“Have you touched others, or permitted yourself to be touched by others immodestly? or given and taken wanton kisses, or embraces, or any such liberties? How often?”Have you looked at immodest objects, with pleasure or danger? read immodest books, or songs, to yourself, or others? kept indecent pictures? willingly given car to, and taken pleasure in hearing loose discourses? or sought to see or hear anything that was immodest? How often?

“Have you exposed yourself to wanton company? or played at any indecent play? or frequented masquerades, bulls, comedies, with danger to your chastity? How often?”Have you been guilty of any immodest discourse, wanton stares, jests, or songs, or words of double meaning? and how often? and before how many? and were the persons to whom you spoke or sung married or single? For all this you are obliged to confess, by reason of the evil thoughts these things are apt to create in the hearers.

“Have you abused the marriage-bed by any action contrary to the order of nature? or by any pollutions? or been guilty of any irregularity, in order to hinder your having children? How often? (Ways to ascertain all this are pointed out by Bishop F. P. Kenrick, in the theology which every priest must study) . Have you, without just cause, refused the marriage debt? and what sin followed from it? How often?

“Have you debauched any person that was innocent before? Have you forced any person, or deluded any one by deceitful promises, etc.? or designed, or desired to do so? How often?

“Have you taught any one evil that he knew not of before? or carried any one to lewd houses?” etc. How often?”

“Have you willingly taken pleasure in unchaste thoughts or imaginations? or entertained unchaste desires? Were the objects of your desires maids, or married persons, or kins folks, or persons consecrated to God? How often?

“Have you taken pleasure in the irregular motions of the flesh? or not endeavored to resist them? How often?

“Have you entertained with pleasure the thoughts of saying or doing anything which it would be a sin to say or do? How often?

“Have you had the desire or design of committing any sin, of what sin? How often?” Can an unmarried priest ask these questions of the women of his flock, full of life, of blood, of impure thoughts, without finding out all he wants to know to ascertain where victims for his lust abide? These questions are asked in every town where is a Roman Catholic church, and lives growing out of them are lived; and this places the cesspool, full of contagion, in juxtaposition with us all. Paul asked:”Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. What! know you not that he which is joined to a harlot, is one body?”(1 Cor. 6:15,16.) The fact is apparent, whoever tolerates Romanism tolerates harlotry of the worst and vilest descriptions.

TURN NOW TO DENS, WHO IS AUTHORITY.

“A confessor has seduced his penitent to the commission of carnal sin, not in confession, nor by occasion of confession, but from some extraordinary occasion. Is he to be denounced?” A. No. If he had tampered with her from his knowledge of confession, it would be a different thing, because, for instance, he knows that person, from her confession, to be given to such carnal sins.”

Imagine a girl, fallen through the misconduct of a priest. She becomes alarmed. She goes to another confessor; tells her story. Confessors are advised not lightly to give credit to any woman whatsoever accusing their former confessor, but first to search diligently into the end and cause of the occasion, to examine their morals and conversation. In other words, break doiun the witness.”For which reason, observe, that whatever person, either by herself or by another, falsely accuses or denounces a priest as a seducer, incurs a case reserved for the supreme Pontiff.” (Antoine, p. 428.) There is no protection for virtue in the Roman Catholic Church. The priest tells the woman she does not sin by yielding. He confesses to a priest and is absolved. All unite against virtue. Is not the window open? Cannot men see the character of Romanism to which the Republic and the United States surrenders?

WHAT WILL CITIZENS OF THE REPUBLIC DO ABOUT IT?

This is the question which must be answered by Christian men and women. Nuns walk the streets of Washington in procession, with smiling faces, and defiant, don t-care look: sleek priests dwell in palatial residences, and have things their own way. Members of Congress surrender their wives and daughters to their care. Vast sums are given to propitiate the favor of Rome. The peril increases; not because Romanists outnumber Protestants, but because Protestants are silent who ought to speak.

THERE IS THE LAP OF ROME,

in Washington! The Nation’s Capital has fallen into it, and ministers are as silent about it as if there were no peril. For shame!!!

All this shows, as was said in”Why Priests Should Wed,” that Francis Patrick Kenrick and John Hughes, who wrote, must have had an acquaintance and a practice in indulgence entirely opposed to the profession of celibacy or the existence of virtue. The book of Kenrick and the”Garden of the Soul”ought to be suppressed by legal enactment, and Auricular Confession should be banished from the Roman Catholic Church in America. Polygamy among Mormons is virtue personified, in comparison. Auricular confession is now the prolific source of gross licentiousness, and is destructive of virtue in the hearts of the priests who officiate in the Confessional. These infernal questions, framed by Bishops Kenrick and Hughes, propounded by bachelor priests to females of all ages, from seven years and upwards, and the obligation of the Confessional, binding them under pain of Eternal Damnation to eternal secrecy, is bringing forth a terrible harvest of lust and crime.

Rome does not preach, she plots. Rome cares not for public opinion or public remonstrances, so long as she can control votes, and get on increasing in wealth and power. In Eugene Sue’s”Wandering Jew,” Jesuits are uncovered in their hellish plottings and intrigues. The American of to-day ought to read that book of yesterday, for it reveals what practices, what machinations, what slavery, what abject ruin confronts the young men who shall give themselves to the control of the Jesuits in the American University now being built at Washington. One of the most beautiful characters in literature is”Gabriel the priest .” An orphan, placed in the care of good and honest Catholics if such there are is surrendered by them to the Jesuits, because of facts which came to them concerning property on the way to a certain family, which the Jesuits determine to obtain and hold. As a result, for years, the plottings go on, that orphans may be robbed, and good and innocent people may be deprived of their rights.

Of the general course of education, it is not necessary to speak. It has been described a, thousand times. It is the same at this time as in the days that are gone. But of the training much ought to be said. Gabriel enters the college. He says:”On the day of my joining it, the Superior said to me, in pointing out two of the pupils a little older than myself, These are the companions with whom you are to associate: you will walk with them always, but all three together; the rules of the House forbidding any conversation between two persons alone.”The students from the Jesuit College in Washington go in threes, not in twos. Americans see it, and do not fight it.

TRAINED TO BE SPIES.

“The same regulation enjoins, that you should listen attentively to what your companions may say, in order that you may report it to me, for those dear children may have, unknown to themselves, evil thoughts, or may contemplate the committing of a fault; but if you love your comrades, you must apprize me of their evil inclinations, in order that my paternal remonstrances may spare punishment, by preventing offence; for it is always better to prevent a fault than to punish it.

It happened sometime after, that I myself had been guilty of an infraction of the rules of the House; on which occasion the Superior said to me: My child! you have deserved a severe punishment, but you shall be pardoned, if you will promise to detect one of your companions in the same fault that you have committed.” And all this is done in the name of all that is most holy.

Gabriel ashamed of such conduct, asked if it were wrong to be an informer. The answer:”A student has no right to discriminate between right and wrong, but only to obey; that to the confessor belonged the responsibility,” uncovers the fetters that binds those under the control of Jesuits. His life was spent in an atmosphere of terror, of oppression, and suspicious watchings. Every effort is made to close the heart against all the gentle and tender emotions; to make of every young man a sneak, a hypocrite, a traitor. Lying follows in the wake of such teaching. According to the Constitution of the Society of Jesus, this is trivial. Now let us see the outcome. The education in the college is finished. Into the semi nary Gabriel went, comparatively innocent. He was now to be prepared for the holy ministry. Let us see how the work goes on.

“You placed in my hands a book, he said, “containing the questions that a confessor should put to young men, to young girls, to married women, when they presented themselves at that tribunal of penitence.”” My God,” exclaimed Gabriel, trembling,”I shall never forget that terrible moment. It was in the evening, I withdrew to my room, taking that book with me, composed, as you told me, by one of the fathers, and revised by a holy bishop.””It is impossible,” said Eugene Sue, writing for the French,”to give even in Latin an idea of the infamous book.”

Said Mr. Given, in his bold, excellent work,”Of the Jesuit and the University:””I experience considerable embarrassment in commencing this chapter, as it has to treat of a book that it is impossible to translate, and difficult to cite from its text; because the Latin insults modesty by its plain speaking. I must, there fore, crave the indulgence of the reader, and will promise him in return to withhold as much obscenity as I can.” Further on, in reference to the question imposed by the compendium, Mr. Given exclaims, with generous indignation:”What then must be the conversations that pass, in the retirement of the Confessional, between the priest and a married woman? I forbear to say more.”

The author of the”Discoveries of the Bibliophilist,” after having literally cited a great many passages from this horrible catechism, says:”My pen refuses to proceed further in this encyclopedia of every baseness, and I am sorry that it has gone so far; but I can only say, that though a mere copyist, I feel as much horror as if I had been touching poison. And yet, nevertheless, it is this horror that gives me courage. In the church of Jesus Christ, agreeably to the order established by the Divine will, that evil is good which leads one from error; and the more prompt the remedy the more it is efficacious. Morality can never be in danger so long as truth raises its voice and makes itself heard.”

Gabriel describes the effect upon him as he read the book:”Full of respect, confidence and faith, I opened its pages. At first, I did not understand it; but at last I did. Struck with shame and horror, and overcome by astonishment, I had hardly strength to close, with trembling hand, this abominable textbook. I immediately came to you, my father, to ask pardon for having involuntarily cast my eyes on its pages, which, by mistake, I supposed you had put into my hands.”

“You may also remember,”said the priest, “that I quieted your scruples, explaining to you that it was necessary that a priest, who was destined to hear all things under the seal of confession, should know all, with the power of appreciating it; that the Society imposed the reading of the compendium as a text-book on you deacons, seminarists and priests, who might be called to the sacred duty of confession.”

“I believed you, my father; the habit of passive obedience was too strong upon me, discipline had so utterly deprived me of all self-examination, that spite of my horror, for which I then reproached myself as for a heavy fault, in remembering your words, I returned with the book into my room. I read it! Oh! my father, what a revelation was there of the excessive refinements of criminal luxury! Then in the vigor of youth, I had been alone upheld by my ignorance, and the assistance of God, against sensual struggles. Oh, that night, that night! in the midst of the deep silence of my solitude, trembling with fright and confusion, I spelt over that catechism of monstrous, unheard-of, unknown debaucheries; in proportion as its obscene pictures of frightful lust were presented to my imagination till then chaste and pure, you know, oh God! that it seemed as if my reason had become weakened; yes, and had entirely gone astray; for although I desired utterly to fly from this infernal book; yet, I know not by what awful, frightful attraction, by what devouring curiosity, I was still held breathless over its infamous pages. I felt as though I should have died from shame and confusion; and yet, in spite of myself, my cheeks were burning and a corrupting warmth circulated through my veins, and these terrible allusions assisted to complete my wanderings; it seemed as though lascivious phantoms were starting from its accursed pages, and I lost my recollection in seeking to avoid their burning embraces.

“The terms in which you speak of this book are highly blameable, said the priest; you were the victim of your own excited imagination, and it is to that alone that you ought to ascribe those fatal impressions, instead of imputing them to a book, excellent and irreproachable for its purpose, and authorized by the church.

“Truly, my father,”replied Gabriel, with the most profound bitterness,”I have no right to complain that my mind, till that time innocent and pure, should henceforth be polluted with deformities that I should never even have dreamt of; for it is not likely that any who could have given themselves over to such horrors would have asked pardon from them of a priest.”These are matters on which you are not competent to judge, angrily replied the Father d Aigrigny.

“Then I will say no more on that subject,” said Gabriel, as he proceeded.

“A long illness succeeded this awful night.”

After it, he went as a missionary to America. It is refreshing to read his description of his enjoyment of freedom:

“From my childhood, I had always either lived in a college or a seminary, in a state of oppression and continual dejection; and from being always accustomed to keep my eyes upon the ground, I had never known what it was to contemplate the heavens, or the splendid beauties of Nature. Oh, what profound, what religious happiness I enjoyed on first suddenly finding myself transported amongst the imposing grandeurs of the ocean, when, during the voyage, I contemplated myself between the sea and sky! Then it seemed as if I had quitted a place of thick and heavy darkness. For the first time for many years, I felt my heart freely beating in my bosom. For the first time, I felt that I was master of my own thoughts; and I then dared to examine my past life, as one who looks from a precipice into the deep and darkened valley beneath him. Then strange doubts came across my mind. I inquired of myself by what right, or to what end, I had been so long a time oppressed and borne down; deprived of the exercise of my free will, of my liberty, of my reason. Since God had endowed me with all these, then I reasoned, that perhaps the ends of that grand, beautiful and holy work to which I had dedicated myself, would one day be developed, and compensate me for my obedience and resignation.

On my arrival at Charleston, S.C., the Superior of the establishment in that town, to whom I had communicated my doubts as to the object of the Society, took upon himself to clear them up. With a fearful candor he unveiled their ends; not perhaps as understood by all the members of the Society, of whom a great many partook of my ignorance, but such as the principals of it had undeviatingly pursued from the foundation of the Order. I became terrified. I read the casuists. Oh, my father! what a new and frightful revelation for me, when at every page of these books, written by the fathers, I read an excuse indeed a justification of robbery, calumny, violation, adultery, perjury, murder, regicide, as follows:”Violation. He who, either by force, menace, fraud, or importunity, seduces a virgin, without promise of marriage, must indemnify the girl, or her relatives, for the wrong that may result from it, by giving her a dowry, by which she may get a husband; or marrying her himself, if he cannot otherwise indemnify her. If, however, the offense remains an absolute secret, the seducer is not bound to make any restitution” This is Romanism.

“Adultery. If any one has a guilty connection with a married woman, not because she is married, but because she is handsome setting aside the circumstances of her being married such connection, according to many authors, does not constitute the sin of adultery, but merely that of fornication.”

After reading this, Gabriel said:”When I thought within myself, that as a priest of the God of charity, of justice, of pardon, I yet belonged to a society whose chiefs propounded such doctrines and boasted of them, I made an oath before God, to break for ever the bonds by which I was attached to it.”

Is it probable, is it possible, that Jesuitism has improved? Is such a school or university a desideratum in this land? Do we need to have American youth doomed to such a discipline? Father Chiniquy declares, that students in this land seek to escape this sea of nastiness. The effect of such teaching is horrible. It undermines and degrades manhood. It is time that this truth was brought home to the consciences of men. They have got to be made to see that Romanism is not a religion, but a plot an adjunct of hell; and that it has nothing whatever to do with heaven.

Now it is admitted, that the most revolting and degrading scene of the confessional is that of the prescribed treatment of females. On the mind of every Roman Catholic the conviction is fastened, that damnation is sure to come to those who go to confession and do not confess every sin they have committed. Further, that if a female appears modest, the confessor is instructed that her modesty must be overcome, or else he is authorized to deny her absolution.

“But,” it has been well asked,”what modesty in a young lady, or any other person, is in danger of being offended, if the priest’s conduct is directed by God’s Word? For then he would think of and practice naught but whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are pure, what soever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are of good report/ It is, however, because of the opposite of those things, especially in things that are pure, that the modesty of the most hardened sinner must at times be shocked in the confessional; of course, we need not be surprised to learn that a young lady can be offended there. Indeed, in looking over a pamphlet, containing lengthy extracts from theological works used in seminaries, not in Ireland, but in the United States, that part of the confessional having reference particularly to females, in single life, in the marriage state, and in widowhood, it is impossible to conceive of any thing more vile, more outrageously offensive and abominable, to any mind not steeped in the lowest depths of sensualized life.”Ought not these facts to be placed within reach of the fathers and mothers whose children are exposed to such perils because the Roman Catholic Church is permitted unmolested to do its hellish work? Approach it and try to write the words, and the hand pauses, the heart sickens, and it seems impossible to proceed.

How husbands can allow their wives to go to confession, fathers their daughters, brothers their sisters; or how an intelligent and thoughtful people can look with favor upon the building up of an institution in which these debasing and polluting utterances are taught, passes comprehension.

The Rev. Pierce Connelly, a domestic chaplain to the Earl of Shrewsbury, in a letter published in the London Times, says:”I have had experience in the confessional, from princes downwards, and out of it, such as perhaps has fallen to the lot of no other living man; and my solemn conviction is, that a celibate priesthood, organized like that of Rome, is in irreconcilable hostility with all good human interests. I have seen clerical inviolability made to mean nothing less than license and impurity. I have read to the simple-minded Cardinal- Prefect of the Propaganda a narrative written to a pious lady friend, by a respected Roman priest, of such enormities of lust in his fellow-priests around him, that the reading of them took away the breath; to be answered, Caro Mio, I know it, I know it all, and more and worse than all; but nothing can be done! I have known a priest practice Ligouri on his client simply as an amateur of wickedness, apparently without conscious malice, just as he would try poison upon dogs and cats; an Iago, without even an imaginary wrong from anybody, {Letters of Marcus, p. 122.} and I have seen priests of mean abilities, of coarse natures, and gross breeding, practice upon pure and highly- gifted women of the upper ranks, married and unmarried, the teachings of their treacherous and impure casuistry, and with a success that seemed more than human. I have seen these priests impose their pretended divine authority, and sustain it by mock miracles, for ends that were simply devilish. I have had poured into my ears what can never be uttered, and what ought not to be believed, but was only too plainly true. And I have seen that all that is most deplorable is not an accident, but a result, and an inevitable result, of the working practical system of the church of Rome, with all its stupendous machinery of mischief. And the system is irrevocable and irremediable.” {Ibid p.122}

Yet this is not all. It is even not the worst. Man is what woman makes him, and the priest unmakes the woman and subverts the solid edifice by the ruin of the foundation. What shall be done about it? Shall the truth be scattered? The need of it is apparent in this and other lands.

The Chairman of the Chili Mission of the Presbyterian church, writes as follows:”My Dear Brother: I have read your book Why Priests Should Wed, and beg to say it is just what is needed. I wish you had the power of reading the secrets of the greatest secret society in the world the Roman Catholic Church, as these secrets are hidden to-day in the United States. I could give you some live facts of the present moment concerning the great Harlot as this immense institution has developed here.

“I will write my request, and then give you a fact or two illustrative of the BEAST you are trying to destroy: 1. Have you any objections to our translating and printing your book in Chili? 2. Would you object to its coming out in Spanish in an unmutilated form? and if so, would you be willing to supply us the suppressed matter so that it could be restored in the translation? Let me add now a fact or two that will illustrate, 1st: Your theme, Why Priests Should Wed; and secondly, The benumbing influence of this horrid system, on not only the conscience, but also on the moral sense of the Romanist, and the manliness and womanliness of the members of this depraved society.

The Sota-Cura, or Vice-Cura, in Parral, ruined, sometime ago, one of the teachers in the public school. The lady lives now in San Carlos, and the child is in Chilan, and the Cura still performs his functions.

“The Principal Cura of Parral says, that it is of no consequence, that he is ugly; give him but two hours with a woman, and he can destroy her. This beast is in full charge of the parish church of Parral, and had been transferred to that church because of complaints against him for seducing women.

“Another cura came one night to a house where two young men were visiting two young ladies. He called the young ladies to sit one each side, and spreading a manto in front of the three, began under the manto to handle the girls. The young men saw him do it, and had not spunk enough to kick the drunken rake out of doors. The mothers do not seem to make much objection to such actions. The mothers know of the unhappy relations of the priests with their daughters, and say nothing.

“In Cauquenes, the other day, a young woman ran into the chancel, just after the priest had consecrated the wine, and was about to drink it. She snatched the chalice from his hands, and in the presence of the congregation shouted, You are a bad man, and not worthy to drink that cup, and at the word she drank the wine herself. The next Sunday she was in her place in the choir and nothing was done to her; though she had done a deed that would have put her in prison. But the priest retired from the church and went somewhere else. The parents of the young woman say, she was justified in this act. The account was published one week ago in El Sur, a paper of Concepcion. It was not long ago that the Bishop of Concepcion was the cause of the ruin of a young woman of high parentage: the facts were known to all Concepcion, but the Bishop still served. The mouths of friends were hushed. The bishop has since died of cholera. A gentleman in La Serena told me of the fact that a servant girl in his house was found in the family-way , and the author of her shame was an official member of the Bishop’s house.

“This gentleman went to the Bishop and had the delinquent discovered and transferred to some other part. Had the child been born alive, it was his intention to make the priest support it.

“When after a long vacancy the present archbishop was called to fill the See, at the installation or consecration, a woman was observed to hold a child of two years up above the crowd, and was heard say to it,”That man [the new archbishop] is your father.” She was followed to her house, and it was discovered that she was indeed a mistress of the high functionary. This account was published, and the address of the one who noted the fact given, yet no notice was taken of it. Not a single Eoman Catholic paper said a word or referred to it; much less uttered an indignant denial, and demanded proof, or the punishment of the slanderer.

“Your book covers a wider ground, and deals also with fundamental questions in such a way that we would see it in the hands of every intelligent Roman ist, and for this reason have written you.

I am,
J. M. ALLIS.
Santiago, Chili, S.A., May 4th, 1888. Casilla 912.

While it may not be wise to do more than has been attempted in”Why Priests Should Wed,” it does seem important that the truth be given to the men and women of this Western world, that they may judge truly the character of Romanism, the life-long foe of morality, of virtue, and of Christianity.