proach, as the proud gates of Americanism fly open
before him, the heaven of patriotism, the cause and
fountain of all our national honor."
"It is not the question, that the Pope of Eome
claims the temporal power over his subjects here, but
does the native Catholic allow that claim, which con-
cerns the common sense of all the people? Does
the President of the United States, or any great
civil ruler of the world, wait for his dinner until
the Khan of Tartary announces, by his valet, that he
has dined ? And yet he does this every day ; And
no more does the American Catholic acknowledge the
Pope in his temporal authority, though he may issue
Bull after Bull, and send his foreign criers in demoni-
acal rage, to assert and reassert it."
"I am," continued he, ^' a native Catholic of Louisi-
ana, and I echo the sentiment of that whole State,
when I tell you that we would shiver, by bullets,
any Papal edict that should dare to infringe upon our
blood-bought rights. We saw this foreign Hierarchy
claiming through its Bishops all the property and
revenue of our American churches, in its sole right,
and we sprang upon our feet like men, and put our
182 THE GREAT AMERICAK BATTLE.
jewel box under tlie strong lock of our State laws,
where, against all their cunningly devised fable, and
sharp and fierce opposition, it continues to remain."
" This property," said the mother, " is the pabulum
of the Pope in our country, and but take it all away and
the staff of life Avould be cut right out of his hands.
But, my children, in spite of what our friend tells of
Louisiana and her glorious example against the See of
Eome, we cannot estimate the millions of our national
treasure, now actually in possession of the Vicar-Gene-
rals of that Church."
" Some fifteen years ago the curate of the church of
Pointe Couple claimed the administration of its reven-
ues, in the name of our Bishop," said this Catholic,
" when we appealed to our Supreme State Court, upon
whose bench sat three French Catholic Judges, and
they decided, that neither Pope or Bishop had any
right to control the property of American citizens."
"If 3^ouwill excuse detail," he continued, "I will
remind you that though the Creole Catholics of Louisi-
ana own implicit spiritual obedience to the doctrine
and faith of that church of whom the Pope of Eome
is the Head, they have shown themselves a sword- blade
against his temporal claim on several other noted occa-
sions."
There was a general cry of " Go on."
" Subsequent to the case to which I have referred,
the Bishop himself made a similar claim to the revenue
of the church of St. Louis, when the laity, in their
true American spirit, resisted this colossal cipher. He
withdrew their priestv^, and threatened to excommuni-
CATHOLICS — FOKEIGN AND NATIVE. 183
cate the flock ; Avhen tliey sued this Theological
Autocrat for the damage from his tyrannical proceed-
ing, and obtained one of the most glorious verdicts in
favor of the rights of man, ever rendered in this or any
country. And when, three years since, the same un-
lawful interference was exhibited upon our school sys-
tem, it received a similar obituary notice."
"Would to God," said America, "that the same
spirit of independence had been exhibited all over our
dear country !"
"Nothing but that action made us a nation.
Kothing less than that can save us as such."
"And now," said America, "is there an American
Catholic, so stiff-starched and hollow, as not to shudder
at the sight of that huge wheel which is bobbing over
all our highways and byways, to enfeeble our sinews
and put us under a torpid nightmare. For what else
did the Pope send his Nuncio, tvro years ago, but to
enforce all his canon lavrs upon our country, and take
all the church property of Eoman Catholic citizens
from their trustees, when that fearless American
feeling, loud and stormful-busy, came rushing, thunder-
ing down from the church of Buffalo, in New York,
and, by her Legislature, obtained a general law, which
bright-rolling freedom has alike granted to all. And
although upon Protestantism our civil and religious
liberty eternally rests, that Catholic spirit of tolerance
is the great feature of its God-directed aim. My chil-
dren, the American Party asks, as your fathers did,
are you American and constitutional, and only that ?
The contest between the Pope and the American
184 THE GEE AT AMERICAN BATTLE.
Catholics for their refusal to violate the laws of their
own country, affirms beyond all further doubt that the
Pope claims the same right over his church in the
United States of America as he does in Spain or Italy.
And it also as strongly proves, that American Catho-
lics deny it."
"When the unlawful exaction of England was
manifested in opj)ressive taxation upon the American
Colonies, and the blood of Lexington and Bunker Hill
told the story of their wrongs, their indignation was
not measured by the amount of gold and silver they
were taxed. The man or woman who had never tasted
tea, or been clad in purple and fine linen, rushed with
the same ardor for their country, to death and danger?
as they who had all her prizes.
"And so, when it was seen that all these rites, held
dear and sacred by these Eoman Catholic citizens, were
denied them — expelled from their church and eternally
cursed by its great Head — for being loyal to their
government and independent in their wills, Protestant
American citizens came to their rescue, in their frater-
nal and patriotic spirit, and interposed with heart and
soul, and mind, for their temporal redress.
"Americans, the sweetest moments of my life are
those I am now passing with you. I am grateful,
profoundly grateful, for your attention and for the
garlands you have heaped upon my brow. I tell you,
solemnly, I tell you all, my countrymen, that there are
charcoal-burners among us now, that will make you
see a sinking sun, if God does not mightily interpose
for vour welfare."
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 185
A ponderous atmosphere for some moments seemed
to repress respiration ; when, by previous arrangement,
the doors were flung open and a panoramic view of
Washington and all his Kevolutionary contemporaries
appeared, in their military costume and life-like stature.
Every heart fluttered and every voice quivered at that
sight !
"Look," said the mother, "at that triumph over
Time, America*; and remember it was they, who made
your country for eternity. I caused this exhibition to
come among you now, that you may all feel as united
in life, as they are now undivided in death,"
A trembling and frightful sensibility that the evils
under which they suffered were spreading wider and
wider, seemed to singe the very hearts of all, when
the mother, directing the picture to remain, implored
God Almighty to throw more light on the soul of this
great people, and bade them adieu for the night.
America rapped early at his mother's door next
morning, when he found her at prayer ; and he crept
stealthily, upon his knees, beside her. There, on the
little table, laid open the old flimily Bible, which bore
all the marks that it had been well, but reverently
used, and in which the birth of America Avas recorded,
and all the great events of his national action noted, to
the month and day. But what could equal the sublimity,
the sacredness of that scene, where, swayed by no
impulse, distinct from every human eye — there, in that
silent and still chamber, America and his mother were
communing with God ! As she rose, America clasped
186 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
her in his arms, and, oh ! what a moment of wild rap-
ture to that mother and son 1
" This, m}^ child," said she, placing her hand upon
the Word of God, " is the standard of your nationality ;
and the first words I taught you to prattle upon your
little knees, as you rested on my lap, were ' Our Father
who art in heaven !' "
America reminding her now that their friends Avaited,
she arranged her cap and descended with him to the
parlor,
'' And now, mother," said America, when kissing
and joking had given place for solemn thought, "will
you send another arrow to the mark, and let us hear
about Maryland, and that half-formed opinion, that
Roman Catholic toleration there, was the free gift of
the emigrants of that faith."
" Everything," said she, " sacred in the sentiment,
duty, virtue, and affection of our beloved country is
now burning for expression — eating like iron rust into
the heart of your nation — and with fiery energy and
directness I wish to stimulate you, not by stormy
threat or bitter denunciation, but by that weapon of
Truth (pointing to the picture which stood before
them) by which your fathers did eflective service in
the great battle of freedom. It was by Protestant, and
not by Eoman Catholic legislation that religious tolera-
tion was enacted in that State. It is madness, it is
sheer folly, longer to attempt to coquet the American
public on this point, who must be fed on lucid fact?
and not winning, simpering, spongy anecdote."
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 187
" Maryland was first settled by Protestants, my cliil-
dren, known as Clayborne's Colony, on Kent Island, east
of her beautiful and majestic Chesapeake ; and under
the authority of the crown of England, it was protected
by the government of Yirginia, and there represented
in her House of Burgesses. This colony, embracing
about two hundred souls, continued in an attitude of
prosperous ease, and flourished without oscillation, for
five years, when the settlers from Lord Baltimore
arrived. And of these two hundred emigrants, one-
third, also, were Protestants. You see then, that by
the rules of our American arithmetic, the Protestants
were numerically, as much stronger than Roman
Catholics, as two hundred and seventy is greater than
one hundred and forty, giving them the benefit of the
fractions. And, indeed, this fact I learned from a
Jesuit Father, who accompanied the settlers of old
Saint Mary's. And when from a thousand causes this
original Clayborne settlement began to disperse, Pro-
testant emigrants rushed in from England and Vir-
ginia, and kept that element in the Colony of Mary-
land ever distinct, powerful, and dominant. It was
by a Protestant king of England, that the charter was
granted to Lord Baltimore, which secured equal rights
and privileges to Marylanders, Catholic and Protes-
ant. It was then the voice of a despot, who moulded
the action of that Colony. And from beginning to
end, all the time, these Catholics never had the force
in their numbers, or the power in their charter, to
commit any act intolerant to Protestants."
There were present several Catholics from that
188 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
to relieve lier, by showing more of the timber of this
beam, when she waved her lily hand to one near her,
she requested him to state the influence by which the
Roman Catholic settlers came to Maryland.
Teeming with striking thought, and strong in the
impulse of patriotism, he independently said, " It was
not from English persecution that they fled, for
although that spirit had poured its fiery fury and
hoarded scorn on Puritans, Charles the First scarcely
stirred it into action at all, against the Romanists. And
they never had smarted from real or imagined wrongs.
To impress this fact," said he, "it is only necessary to
say, that Lord Baltimore never left that soil; but
offered large donations of lands to those who did,
Avhich w^as the true philosophy of that enterprise ! For
the same reason that emigrants from all the world
croAvd into California to light upon her gold, the
Roman Ca,tholic adventurers entered Maryland, for
pecuniary gain for Lord Baltimore and themselves !"
This plain prose was a majestic edifice in the minds
of all present, a statue full of deep and earnest truth !
"It was three months," continued he, "after Charles
was beheaded, when that act of religious toleration was
passed in Maryland. Oliver Cromwell led the Puritan
army of England, aided by a powerful Presbyterian
Parliament! And as it is well to gather the chips
and sh*v4ngs, as we go over this ground, I should not
omit to tell you, that the Kent Island and Providence
Protestants, with an independence of understanding,
liad moved the sharp, clear intellect of Clayborne, whose
pleading tones, in behalf of that Maryland majority,
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 189
Cromwell had regarded witli an approving sympathy !
Lord Baltimore's proprietary power had long tottled
like an egg upon its end, and placing a limitation npon
his will, he, without repentance or remorse, but with
wise foresight, before the death of Charles, changed the
government from Catholic to Protestant !"
"Now," said America, "give us the essence of that
noted act, passed in sixteen hundred and forty-nine,
by this government of Lord Baltimore, to escape the
sting and doom about to come upon it."
" My friends, it Avas after all, no more than a mus-
quito bar, with a hole in it ! and repealable with the
same ease you could empt}^ a pea-pod ! But it w^as
pierced through by so much cunning, and buried with
such a seeming weight, what was hateful, scornful, and
dogmatic, that the discolored hue of toleration got stuck
to it, like paint upon the cheek — easy of detection, but
hard to wash out !" The fresh and healthful cast of this
Eevolutionary stock defied criticism, whilst the sturdy
sincerity of these noble women radiated a patriotic spark,
like electricity, all over the company. No apology then
being needed, he continued to shadow forth the real
mockery of this act. "Its first clause punished with
death, and called for an entire surrender of all land and
goods to the Lord Proprietor and his heirs — for disbelief
in the Holy Trinity of God, or the speaking of a blas-
phemous or irreverent word of Him. And for the same
offence against the Virgin Mary, the mother of our Savi-
our, His Apostles or Evangelists, the sum of five pounds
sterling was to be levied on their property ; and if not
fortunate enough to possess that, the sentence was com-
190 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
muted to a public whipping and imprisonment, during
the pleasure of the Governor or Lord Proprietor of that
Colony ! Again, my friends, the like penalty was im-
posed for employing the terms heretic, schismatic, or
idolater, towards any sect or creed, and for the viola-
tion of the Sabbath ! And lastly, there was a prohi-
bition you will discover, securing religious toleration
to all who believed in Jesus, according to the spirit
and intent of that act !"
"Why," said America, rising from his seat, "great
God, is it possible, is it possible ? This toleration ! this
Sodom apple of puff and dust !"
"Worse than that," added his mother! "it is as
bloody as Draco's Code!"
"Now," said his friend, "we, the native Catholics,
have always derided the idea that this was anything
else than aggressive ! We knew it was no constitu-
tional provision, and only made for the time and to
suit the occasion. So far from being a brisk, lively,
keen, energetic grasp for gospel liberty, it reins in its
steed, and is as dead a stoppage to it, as the overthrow
of the tea chests in Boston harbor, was a dagger or
rapier thrust into a British throne !"
CHAPTEE XIII.
THK TEMPORAL POAVER OF THE POPE
IN AMERICA.
' Freedom spreads her downy wings
Over all created things ;
Glory to the King of Kings I
Bring the heart before His throne —
"Worship Him, and Him alone I
He's the only King we own —
And He has made us free ! " G. P. Mobbis.
With a countenance fall of anxiety, America beck-
oned to Ms mother, wlio had joined her young friends,
in a morning walk. She looked at him earnestly, and
smiling with unspeakable affection, sat down on the
soft sward, and waited his approach. Flowers of all
colors sent their sweet perfume to the air, the dark
blue mountains were visible in the distance, and a sky
so pure, that it was almost blue-black, overshadowed
them.
"You were running avv'ay from us, mother,'" said
America; with earnestness, as the whole crowd dashed
rapidly behind him. She saw his horrid agony and
felt his beating heart, and whispered into his ear this
one word, " Hope I"
"It is well," said she, "Americans, to have some
(191)
192 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
variety in our lives. Your fathers climbed over
raanj huge crags, and passed through many subter-
raneous passages, before they arrived at the meadows
on the declivities of your mountains. But time hastens
on ; I feel it at least, and I can scarcely believe, when
I see these ancient speaking rocks and animals and
trees, and call to mind the wild tumult of our old
Eevolution, that this is the same world.
"And then to be whirled as we are," said America,
*' our ship steered by eyeless pilots, and nothing high
and convex to be seen I Oh, Heavens! is our dear
country so full of sin and error, that she must be
thus humbled to the dust?"
"No, no! we must lash out this crime upon our
liberties, and defend our rights like men and women,
and make its goodness glitter with new attraction.
That is what your American Party aims to do."
There was no sipping, but the whole company drank in
the thought with a hearty good will.
"There is no use now," said America, "in being
stingy with our words, and wriggle, and stutter, and
be tongue-stabbers. That act of Maryland toleration,
whose brains you brought out so well yesterday,
mother, is the dunce that Jesuit Papists have been so
long raising to the dignity and glory of patriotism, and
which has as much soul liberty in it, as that cannon
which was fired by the order of the Pope, in honor of
his great Protestant massacres throughout the Avorld !
It was a thorn or thistle to all who did not believe in
God, just as that government of Lord Baltimore willed
it ; that was the judge and executioner to decide the
TEMPOKAL POWER OF THE POPE. 193
belief, and punish tlie man, for Ms own pecular view •
and this, too, was passed by an assembly, whose gov-
ernor, secretary, and council, with but one exception,
were Protestants!"
^'And yet, my son, those Protestants, unsuspect-
ing and tolerant, allowed their enemies to tip their
arrows with fire, to hit themselves!"
"I would die a hundred times to save my coimtry
from those imps of Moloch and Belial," said he, "whose
genius and learning serve no better end than to be
benevolent to Eome and malignant to America ; who
look unmoved at our national degradation, and talk
the language of freedom to parasites, the political sub-
jects of the Pope, that they themselves may revel in
the realities of public avarice and political reward I
Had the Pope of Eome possessed the power, he would
soon have showed the shell and sham of that Maryland
toleration, which, had it been enforced in its true mean-
ing, would have stained the hearthstones of many a
family altar !"
''That union of Church and State, made by the
temporal authority of the Pope of Eome, will extinguish
the last instinct of your nationality, and honor. It
is corrupting, corroding, consuming the vital principles
which made your nation. The foreign papist must
burst the serf bond, take off the mark, drop the ticket
in the ocean, which shows his allegiance to a Eoman
Pontiff, before he again mixes into our annual politics,
or enjoys the first fruits of another Presidential harvest!
And, my friends, our American Party is marshalled
against principalities and powers, and its mission, under
19-i THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
God, is to save the free wills and tlie free hearts of our
country. It has a strong death-grapple to make be-
tween what now is and what ought to be. And it is
madness to delay longer sounding all the depths and
the shallows of the influences against us, that all the
people, all who love our dear country, by origin or
adoption, may rouse in the full freshness of their hearts,
and re-af&rm our indestructible national life, and prove
the power of our everlasting principles ! The increase
of this foreign population in the last five years, America,
is greater than it was in the whole preceding sixty
of your life ! And twice as many now land upon
your shores every six months, as came in forty-five
years before the Declaration of Independence, and of
course before you were born I" As this master-spirit
proceeded, sparks of fire seemed to vibrate in the very
air around them. " The three millions who constituted
all our Colonial force at the begining of our Kevolution,
were, with the exception of between tAvo and three
hundred thousand, born upon the soil ! The descend-
ants of emigrants — the true Americans. And hence as
one people, that national spirit to resist a national
wrong, overwhelmed its foaming flood, all over the
land. They mingled with the life of their country,
its great virtues, and noble aims !"
'' Was the same spirit evinced by the foreigner then^
for our national renown and the success of our battles
for Independence, as the native born sons and daugh-
ters?" said America.
" They did not evince it. There were many glorious
illustrious exceptions, of whom I have before spoken,
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 195
who stood at the guns and furnished the sinews of war,
like Morris ; but as a body, thej constituted those who
opposed the progress of our Independence, and change
in our government. "Why, my friends, did not your
tolerant, just, humane, generous, and national Wash-
ington, whose principles are yours to-day; he who
watched their actions when tyranny with its war
pressure was crushing out the life of your country, warn
you then, when weak, and wan, and wasted, of the
terrible consequences of this foreign entanglement?
My children, there is not a faculty of your American
mind, not a feeling of your national heart, not an aspira-
tion, that gives interest, value, or beauty to its great
soul, that is not gripped and foully stained by these
grim Romish wolves, who are as resistless as Niagara
over the foreign laity they crowd upon you 1 And now,
in God's name, let the American Party Idndle the liv-
ing energy of our own people, run it into one thought
for the regeneration of our land, as our flithers and
mothers ran their pewter into balls at the first tap
of the Revolutionary drum I Once let your people
think, my son, upon this foreign evil, and every true
American would start, tingling with the sensation of
patriotic sentiment, and leap the universe to save
your honor, your religion, your freedom, your nation-
ality!"
"Oh, God!" said America, "shall the footprints of
our fathers, who baptized me in fire, and enrolled them-
selves in our armies as the great Revolutionary mar-
tyrs, be forgotten now?" Every soul seemed to feel the
monarchy of his own power, and yet, fused into unity,
196 THE' GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
swore before tlie canvas picture of those ancestors, tliat
rapturous devotion to country which, flamed and blazed
again and again !
"Who dares deny," said the mother, "that Popish
Bull, which is yearly read in Eome, eternally cursing
the heretics by name, of every sect or creed on the face
of the earth ! Show me the priest who has not sworn
that it is necessary for salvation, to be subject to the
Pope of Eome, all over the world ! Holy Thursday,
Americans, is the day we all receive the Pope's curse
from his great cathedral of St. Peter ! It is amusing
to observe, how he dares and defies Heaven and Hell
then ! "With conscious power and no sting of death,
the Bull is read in solemn mockery, when a lighted
candle is suddenly extinguished, to show the darkness
of all us poor heretics, and then begins the firing of his
cannon-thunder from his castle of St. Angelo, to make
all the heretics of the vforld tremble !"
"By this sacred volume," said America, as he
snatched up the Bible and pressed it to his bosom,
"nothing but this truth shall make us fear."
" By the registered decrees of Popery, my friends,
all earthly sceptres are swayed by its Yicar of God, as a
bubble which his breath blows away ! He puts his
limitation upon kings and priests, as the machinery
of his power. For truth's sake, it unshrinkingly
affirms that God granted to Peter, and his success-
ors, the spiritual right to judge all earthly governments !
And by this fulness of power over all nations, it ab-
solved all the nobles, subjects, and people under the
crown of an English Protestant Queen, Elizabeth, and
TEMPOEAL POWER OF THE POPE. 197
all others who had sworn to her, from theb oaths, and