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in councils, and in the interpretation of all these things by the supreme authority of the Church itself" (")—that is, the pope. --and because the Church, through the pope, "can alone determine the extent of its own infallibility!" (°)

Archbishop Manning is, beyond all question, a man of eminent ability; far too sagacious not to see the results which. must logically follow these papal doctrines, this absorption of all power, within the illimitable domain of faith and morals, by an infallible pope. And, therefore, observing the present condition of the Christian world, and seeing the nations, hitherto Roman Catholic, gradually conceding to the people more political rights than they ever enjoyed before, and witnessing the fact that the Roman Catholic people of Italy have solemnly decided, with wonderful unanimity, that the pope shall be "King of Rome" no longer, but a mere bishop of the Church, he breaks out in these doleful words:

"But what security has the Christian world? Without helm, chart, or light, it has launched itself into the falls of revolution. There is not a monarchy that is not threatened. In Spain and France monarchy is already overthrown. The hated SYLLABUS will have its justification. The SYLLABUS, which condemned atheism and revolution, would have saved society. But men would not. They are dissolving the temporal power of the vicar of Christ. And why do they dissolve it? Because governments are no longer Christian.”(“1) With Archbishop Manning and all who maintain, as he does, the enormous powers and prerogatives of the pope, all governments not monarchical are revolutionary, and "atheism and revolution are twin sisters. The pope, as "King of Rome," was a temporal monarch, and wore a crown like any other king. The loss of it by him, and the like loss in France and Spain, contributed at least to one practical result: the advancement of the people toward that condition in which they may have some voice in making the laws under which they are to live, and the creation of a hope that the time may come when they shall get along with their public affairs without the assistance of monarchs. While this is

(49) "The Vatican Council, and its Definitions," by Manning, p. 129. (t) Ibid., p. 135. (51) Ibid., p. 165.

the cause of exultation and gladness to all the advocates of popular government, to the papist it is the cause of sadness and grief, because he sees in the loss of monarchy the certain death of the papacy-the sure downfall of the whole superstructure of the papal temporal dominion. And he exclaims, as Archbishop Manning does, that "governments are no longer Christian," because they are no longer Roman Catholic! There is, with him, no other Christianity than that professed by the Roman Catholic Church, under papal dictation! Every man who does not believe as that Church teaches, through the pope, is worse than a heathen-he is an infidel! Protestantism embodies no religion at all; it is infidelity and the most odious form of heresy! Under its pernicious influence the world is rapidly drifting toward a fearful precipice," without helm, chart, or light," and must soon, if not arrested by the papal arm, plunge into the terrible abyss below! When it shall have done this, and darkness and despair shall have settled over the fair places of the earth, and the groans of suffering humanity shall have reached the heavens, then "the hated SYLLABUS will have its justification," because it pointed out the method of escape! The SYLLABUS "would have saved society!"

Having thus ascertained what the infallibility of the pope means, according to the definition of its ablest advocates, who are themselves infallible; how it raises up the рарасу above all human governments and all the nations and peoples of earth; how it likens the pope to God in all the essential attributes of sovereignty; how it enables him to decide for himself, and without any human restraint, the extent and nature of his own personal power and authority over mankind; how completely it demands the closing of all investigation, the shutting-up of all minds, and the passive and humiliating obedience of both "intellect and will" to all papal decrees; and how it possesses coercive power to enforce this obedience when it is refused-our investigations would be incomplete if we did not hereafter carry them to the point of ascertaining how the ills with which society is now afflicted are to be remedied; how, when all mankind shall come to obey the pope, they are to be governed, if that millennial period shall ever arrive. We have the means

INFALLIBILITY EMBRACES THE FUTURE.

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of discovering something about the past, and know what the present is; but what kind of future there is in store for us when the papacy shall triumph, as its devotees pretend to believe it will, can only be learned from its authoritative teachings and from its past history. Whatever its history has been, and whatever its present teachings are, the whole is accepted as infallible truth, by those who submit to the dogma of infallibility. Whatever they may be to-morrow, or next day, or next year, or at any time in the immediate or remote future, they will be accepted in like manner; for the papacy, under the guidance of the crafty followers of Loyola, demands submission, not merely to all the past and present decrees of the popes, but to all that any future pope, or the present one, shall hereafter promulgate! Thus The Catholic World instructs us. In an article upon "Infallibility," published in the number for August, 1871, this doctrine is set forth in these words:

"A Catholic must not only believe what the Church now proposes to his belief, but be ready to believe whatever she may hereafter propose. And he must, therefore, be ready to give up any or all of his probable opinions so soon as they are condemned and proscribed by a competent authority."("") And this he must do, as this same authority instructs us, "with unquestioning submission and obedience of the intellect and will," by the forfeiture of his manhood and the debasement of his nature, and with no more "right to ask reasons" of either pope or priest, than he has to ask them of Almighty God! The servitude of negro slavery was not more humiliating, the difference being only the substitution of the lash of excommunication for that of the slave-driver.

Thus, by the wonderful perfectness of this ecclesiastical organization, we find it in possession of authority over the minds, consciences, thoughts, and actions of so large a portion of our population as to assure us, with reasonable certainty, that many of them will attempt to do, directly or indirectly, whatsoever the pope shall require of them. That he would reconstruct our Government so as to make it conform to his own views in all those things which concern the

(2) The Catholic World, August, 1871, vol. xiii., p. 586.

Church, its welfare, and its faith, by subordinating all our constitutions and laws, in each of these particulars, to his sovereign will, no fair-minded and sensible man will deny. That he would take from the people the right to make any laws except such as he shall consider consonant to the divine law, there is not the least doubt. That he would subject the State to the domination of the Church in the entire domain of faith and morals, every body knows. That he would give entire independence to his hierarchy in the United States, so that they should not be answerable to the civil law, even for crimes of the greatest magnitude, there is abundant and convincing proof. That he would abolish every other form of religious belief but that of his own Church, and secure to it the prerogative of exclusiveness by intolerant penal laws, and abolish free speech and a free press, he has himself avowed in almost every form of utterance. Therefore, we have the greatest possible interest in knowing to what extent he is likely to obtain obedience from his followers in this country upon each and all of these great and vital questions; what kind of institutions he would erect in the place of those we have; and how he proposes, in his unbounded pontifical benevolence, to better our condition. The field of such an inquiry is exceedingly broad, and we may do but little more than enter within its borders, taking care to keep in mind the fact that, in this country of Protestant freedom, we have nothing to do with the religious convictions of any man, or his want of them, except in so far as they may be made a pretext for assaulting the Constitution and laws of the country. To an attack upon these, by either a foreign or domestic foe, we are not yet prepared for tame submission.

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CHAPTER VI.

Claim of Divine Power over Temporals by Pius IX.-Its Extent.-He alone Defines its Limits.-Effect of this in the United States.-Principles of the Constitution within the Jurisdiction of the Papacy.-Germany, Italy, etc. -The Pope stirs up Insurrection there.-The Jesuits Expelled.-Papists in the United States Justify Resistance to the Law of Germany.-Same Laws in the United States.-Effect upon Allegiance.-Bavarian Protest. -Abuse of the Confessional.-Power of Absolution.-The Immoral Bearings of the Confessional.

SINCE the formation of our Government, there has been, among the people of the United States, much discussionand some of it angry and exciting-involving the extent and distribution of civil power, and the relations between the National Government and the States; yet no portion of them have been disposed to assail the fundamental principles upon which our institutions are founded. Their differences, although often radical and threatening, have hitherto failed to eradicate from their minds the strong attachment they have always borne to that form of popular freedom and sovereignty which constitutes one of the most distinctive features in our plan of government. Even sectional jealousies and civil war, with all their terrible and deplorable consequences, and with the bad passions they invariably engender, have failed to destroy or weaken this attachment; and to-day there is no single State in the Union which, if it were remodeling its domestic government, would not preserve with the most sedulous care the separation of the Church from the State, so that the people should remain the primary source of all civil power. If there is a single sentiment which has universality among all the lovers of our free institutions, it is this. They cling to it with affection like that with which the mother hugs her offspring to her bosom. And it is something of a tax upon their patience when they see this great principle assailed at the bidding of a foreign power, no matter wheth