sess her, soul and body ? Popish Dives are absorbed in
defending pious foundations, securing mortgages, but
neglecting her poca^ Lazarus ! This bier and coffin of
despotism must be buried from the eyes of America.
It is blasphemy on her great name. It is a knife to
slaughter her freedom. The sun and dew of America
can produce no harvests of men where this flourishes
and springs forth, to make them machines. With
Popery nothing free stands or lives! Oh, what a
moment for America's men, when their families, their
wives and children, are endangered by an influence
which impregnates her air, her temperature. If
MEN OF AMERICA. 51
America is to be bound to the earth amidst false
friends, false patrons, false protectors, false clergy, her
men mnst furnish the cord and the stakes. It is the
American people, American voters, her editors, her
printers, her farmers, merchants, lawyers, physicians,
preachers, teachers, artisans, operatives, yeomen, that
are bound up as one people ; who made the Declara-
tion and the ^Constitution, and the oath to support
these, that America wants ; men with the same una-
nimity, to crush out a system which curses American
liberty, and brands twenty-seven millions of her people
heretic I
Can America be annihilated? Can her walls, her
stones, her sounds, her air, her sky-light, not under-
stand ?
Let her dilapidate prisons, and deliver her wretches
from death. The captive mind of America suffers —
dumb among inferior animals — and musing, like tlie
barbarians of Africa or Asia, in free America.
With its fathers, let Popery live and be buried, but
not with America's soil. Let American men, all who
love her, whether by birth or adoption, all who love
her pure principles, and bless God for her free institu-
tions, organize and work for this great deliverance.
She wants all her men, every one of them.; not crying
men with pocket-handkerchiefs to their eyes, but men
who decide all, and are men. This is the power to
strike America's foes — her men who will not be duped
by duties, and be blind to their rights, but know both,
and who, knowing this, knoAv their empire.
52 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
It is the men of America wlio can raise lier flag
above all mountain summits, and rally Trntli and Free-
dom aroimd tlie globe. As a standard of humanity
they are invincible to tyrants.
For seventy-nine years this Romish Hierarchy has
been speaking a language and adopting an instruction
hostile to American liberty and American nationality.
The people thought they were laboring for souls, sus-
pected no wrong, until the crape and the cypress were
visible all over the country. The disciples have been
worthy of their master, and they are pumping the very
sap which springs instinctively into the American
heart. They take away her books, take away her
pulpits.
Oh, men of America, make them dejDart from our
temples ; they give no light to the people ; their lamps
have gone out ; America wants not a dead but a living
religion !
ComC; sons of America, American freemen ; put
torches in dark places, and demand light, until it min-
gles with the visions of America.
Men and principles are to be saved — Citizen and
Christian; then crown the apostles of liberty with a
civic wreath, and let her American Party discard the
tattered robe, and achieve this last but not least of
American triumphs. Who will stop to weigh syllables
in a scale, or bottle the tears of her joy?
This is a mighty move ; God's hand is here ; nothing
can withstand the storm — it is coming, coming ! The
winds blow — the leaves are scattering — the fowls are
MEN OF AMEEICA. 53
flying. Coming, coming! Gracious God, it lias
come!
" Oh, shun with pious awe
Corruption's least approach,
Nor on that sacred fount of law
Let aught profane approach.
Give honor to the great and good,
And wi-eathe the living brovv^,
Kindling with virtue's mantling blood,
And pay the tribute now /"
CHAPTER IV.
AMERICAN CHII.DREN IN ROMAN
CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS.
" One in th-e struggle for mankind,
One in the strife for equal laws ;
One, only one, in heart and mind.
Forever one, in Freedom's cause.
And tyrants might as well enchain
The billows of the mighty sea,
As for a moment's space restrain
Our onward march of destiny."
When America concentrated all lesser rays, slie re-
vealed her own great nationality, and became more
tlian nation — tlie asylum of freemen — the political city
' — ^the moral city of the living brotherhood. Her men
struggled for her vital heat until they made her the
Pontiff of invincible light ; and replete with the history
of heroes, and rich in the blood of her martyrs, they
left her, though an infant, the offspring of Solomon, on
the judgment-seat of nations.
America rose, then, on the promise of Christianity,
and under the dogma of its principles. It was a unity
of love which made her the land invincible to hope.
That alone gave her life, durability, and freedom. Can
(54)
CHILDREN m CATHOLIC lIs^STITUTIONS. 55
slie faint now in tlic depth of her nature ? Shall she
die now in the wilderness without seeing the promised
land ? Can her sons, in the face of all she has done,
with the blood she has shed, with the dead rising from
their tombs, desert her now? America is the head,
the judge, the Prsetor of mankind.
But America is trembling all over. A theological
autocrat, a Komish despot, has had a great inaugura-
tion-day under her free sky. And for her imprescrip-
tible rights for that truth which God made for man, for
which Jesus Christ died, and American liberty strug-
gled to protect — she calls out yet for light ; Lord, more
light!
A Eomish Hierarchy has entered and mapped Amer-
ica before her eyes — her soil, her geography, her
philosophy, her history, her resources, and her men.
Sworn foes to freedom, they put their hands on the
Star-Spangled banner and their feet on her Bible, and
ask, Are we not faithful to American liberty ? Jesuit-
ism is working in America as it never has done before,
it is digging her up to implant its seed deep in her soil,
whetted by obstacle, its whole machine is in activity,
its springs all at play, and its thirst is creating pools
through all the forest, to drench the very sod of
America. And now these Jesuitical artists, who have
surveyed America as a sociable angel, to ansv\^er the
longings of saints and the fears of mortals, decide to
resculpture her globe, upset her freedom, and build
upon her fair proportions night, death, and a doleful
pit. They open the foreground, and offer their houses
56 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
of education. Education to wliom? To American
citizens I
This it is wliich makes tliis love of freedom a grand
salutary, durable impression on American children,
xlmerica tlius embraces each, child, and warms it with
her great soul, speaks to it through her living and her
dead, shows it how God has blessed it in America with
her blood, her liberty, her Bible. The child thus learns
to embrace the image of life, and craves the strong food
of the mind, wliich nourishes the very soul of America.
Shall these first moments of life, when experience is
collecting, and reason a23plying, w^hen impulses are de-
ciding American destiny, be surrendered to a Jesuit
priesthood, who kick the Bible out of doors, or burn
it before the eyes of their pupils, and call it an immoral
book ? Here are decisions made for liberty or death !
Under these teachers Americans acquire their ideas,
associate, judge them, learn to love or despise, to desire
or avoid, and thus are the opinions transmitted from
fathers, mothers, nurses, instructors, and schools. Thus
the mind of America becomes saturated with truth and
liberty, or filled with error and despotism, thus con-
science, the means of reflecting, the means by which I
Jvnow what I think, and that the thoughts and actions
are mine, and belong to me, is cultivated. Thus the
American sees his destiny by the objects tovfards w^hich
his energies are directed, thus these teachers show him
Lis interest, teach him where to place his felicity ; they
arc made to love it, to search for it, these American
citizens become in their turn the sovereigns of society,
CHILDEEN IX CATHOLIC IXSTITUTIOXS. 67
the depositories of all political power— the proprietors
of America. Education, then, is the instrument of
liberty, property and security to America.
Is it, then, a matter of trifling .moment to offer to the
sons and daughters of America false ideas of honor,
wrong ideas of her glory — ^to concentrate prejudice
before their eyes — Avhich makes them view with dis-
gust the very safeguard of liberty, her Bible — and
where all inimical to the very existence and well-being
of America is derided ?
The man thus tutored and trained becomes under a
moral necessity to obey his heaventy teaching, and
thus acts under as strong an influence as though the
axe of the guillotine or the fires of the Inquisition
were really before him. The same desire for a bene-
diction from the Pope of Home that made Grecian
philosophers burn themselves to excite the astonish-
ment and admiration of Grecian assemblies. A man
believes he is free, and this is the delusion of Jesuitism.
It is the imperceptible concealed evils of Jesuitism,
until the moment for action is displayed, from which
America now suffers. With millions of her young
men and young women attached to powers which can-
not be foreseen — what a trembling for America ! In
every Komish institution in America, atoms are amass-
ing, insensible particles are combining and assembling
for that mighty power at Eome, who seeks to scourge
us and take away our Nation.
What is man but a machine trained thus ? He can-
not answer for his own destiny a single instant ; he is
3^
58 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
ignorant of tlie causes Avhicli acts in tlio interior of tlie
macliine, lie has no cognizance of wliat passes witliin
his own mind, knows nothing of the circumstances
which will give them activity, or develop their energy;
nevertheless on these causes he feels his life depends.
Americans, dost thou see the threads by which you
enchain your children? Dost thou see the circum-
stances which rule and control their destiny ? Dost
thou believe thy prayers can arrest the influence of
those to whom thou entrusts thy child? AVhen
America becomes old, her fibres rigid, her nerves un-
strung, her senses obtund, her sight dim, her ears
loose their quickness, her imagination cools ; her
memory fails. Oh ! what will her great soul do ?
But know thou, ai-rogant mortal, thou vicegerent of
Kome, that, though the Washingtons, Franklins,
Adams, and that vast concourse of heroes are dead,
that the course of America is not arrested, and never
can be. America has mourned their loss, but America
lives on the fame of their deeds, and a desire to per-
petuate them.
Cato was commended because he would not survive
liberty : Curtius, who rode voluntarily into a gap to
save his country, a model of heroic virtue. Samson
wishing to be revenged on the Philistines, consented
to die with them as the only means. And if our
country, our liberties, are invaded, by taking av/ay our
Bibles, taking away our children for Eome, will we
not freely die to arrest it — to save our dearly-loved
country ? Oh, God bless her I
CHILDREN IN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 59
Can a man be an American when liis opinions sliall
oblige liim to tremble ? Interest is the great prompter
of human action — interest alone ought to make a man
a true American ; and the happiness of all her people
consists in nourishing those principles which gave
birth to her liberty. It is the humanity, the compas-
sion, the benevolence, the equity of America, those
sentiments of attachment and tenderness innate to her
soil, that we cultivate and love. Are the sons of
America thus tremblingly to champ the feeble bit of
Popery which makes them pusillanimous or enthusi-
asts — who are rendered unhappy by their opinions, or
dangerous by their tenets ? Popery is a dyke to resist
all that is light and free.
Great God ! shall American children be fostered by
the sworn enemies of America's freedom, who are
destroying their young hearts, filling them with con-
tempt for her religion and her liberties, who are wrest-
ing all self-respect from their characters — annihilating
liberty and justice, breaking the most powerful in-
centive, weakening the most efiicacious stimulus to
urge them to action, and glory, and right — that spur
to live for America — taken off. Is it not audacious ?
is it not dishonest ? and yet this intrigue is eulogized
— ^this cunning rewarded at the ballot-box ; this love
of public weal taxed, and American rights looked at
as a bubble. Jesuits clothed in public honors by
American suffrages — her punic sorrow laughed to
scorn 1 This faith to America stalks forth unmolested,
and is lauded with ovation at the Court of Kome,
60 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
Notliing can compensato tiie Avant of virtue in onr free
America. Alexander required the destruction of
empires to content his passion for glory ; Diogenes but
a tub to make liini look whimsical ; Socrates but dis-
ciples to lead to virtue ; but the Pope of Eome wants
the liberties of thirty millions of freemen, soul and
body, to content his rapacity. All quarters of the
globe are thus ransacked to find food to suit the dainty
taste of the fastidious of America.
It is America's sole errand to oppose this ; to con-
solidate all virtue and kindness upon her own destiny ;
to interest her people in their conservation ; to merit
her affections ; to draw respect on lier from strangers ;
to render harmoniou.3 her page of history; to elicit
the praise of all nations ; to clothe the orplian ; to dry
the vadow's tear.
If America has miscalculated her remedies against
this growing evil, they are suitable ; let her but be
consulted — her experience cannot be resisted, and
Americ*a will not renounce the evidence of her senses !
And when error is demolished, it must be by truth,
not prejudice. By not underrating the power of that
great curse, which is sapping our foundation, and sink-
ing our national standard every day. This is an obli-
gation America must not, and dare not longer resist.
The Laplander adores a rock, the negro prostrates
himself before a serpent, and, at least, sees what it
adores; the idolater falls down before a statue, and
what more does Popery — to the souls of America.
Mahomet conversed with the Deity, and promulgated
CHILDREN i:\ CATHOLIC I2T3TITL'TIOX3. 61
his system to Mussiilmcn^ which uovi imposes on mill-
ions of credulous Arabs, and is yet the creed of the
Turk. These are the results of education. The Turk
would have adored the serpent, or the African the
Arab, in the same way by circumstances.
The worst of all is deified error. He wlio abandons
his reason in this, Avill not likely examine it in anything
beside. The Eomish Hierarchy says to American sons
and daughters, you must seek your happiness in the
creed of the Eomish Church, of which tlie Pope is the
pillar ; it is, then, in the doctrines they set forth that
we expect men to look for the model of right I
Then America is to be saved by an instruction which
rigorously underrates her reason; and waiting only
for time and chance to excite the most rancorous ani-
mosity, and separate forever freedom and America.
Popery, then, is armed with this political mission in
America, and she fulfils it through her convents,
schools, and colleges. Citizens of America, give ac-
tivity to her movement by giving the souls and bodies
of your children to their guidance, and soon will you
feel the plunge of their pointed steel and barbed arrows.
America shrieks with horror at such a havoc — ^he'r
blood bowing to superstition and idolatry of priestly
influence — each child lauded, while his destroyer glo-
ries in the crime for which he enlisted his young
heart.
In some countries, mothers have delivered children,
to moisten with their blood the altars of the gods — in
others, by immolating their victims — ^in others, by la-
62 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
ceration and torture. Some tliirst for blood, some for
idolatry — ^biit, gracious God.! is free America to be a
pandemonium ? Our dear country ! Shall America's
children give their souls and bodies, through their par-
ents, to an idolatry which banishes happiness and
reason, stifles the cries of nature, renders them barba-
rous to themselves, atrocious to their fellow-creatures,
to render their zeal acceptable to Eomish priests and
priestesses.
The ethics of Eomish superstition, which shuts up
the souls and bodies from the eyes of America, must
always be prejudicial to her. Coming here trampling
on the dearest rights of nature and freedom, and un-
bridling their rancor against Protestants — to obtain the
favor of Heaven ! Is America's blood to be polluted
and castigated? Priests and prelates, calling them-
selves the ministers of Heaven, inflated with pride and
covetousness, advancing the cause of Eomish despot-
ism and intolerance in free America ? They fix on
adamantine rocks, and establish an empire on brass, in
America : then send American children to her instruct-
ors ; they are open to receive them all, every one of
them ! It is impossible to serve the Pope of Eome
and the Lord Jesus Christ at the same time !
Eome's Vicegerent opposes America's God, and has
inflicted in all ages .the most cruel exaction on those
who refused to displace God for him. Professing re-
ligion, with no knowledge of morality ! Even Con-
stantine found his priestly accomplices, and sovereigns
have had no difficulty in atoning for crime, with a good
Confessor.
CHILDKEN IN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 63
Wliat fruit lias Popery ever gathered anywhere?
What nation was ever rendered more happ}^, what
sovereign more powerful ? — alas, alas !
With a monopoly of expiatory indulgences, are they
to establish a tariff of pardons for American citizens,
to which all fidelity may be forfeited by paying the
customs — subjecting them who are favorable to liberty
to the heaviest imposts? Thus may America be de-
fended, but it is at a dear cost that her Papal sons can
touch the hem of her garment ! What the priest looks
to as sacred — which is the Church — the political Church
of Eome — no citizen of America, who is with her, can
regard as common. Under such a guidance, what can
become of America's youth ? Sacrificed to supersti-
tion, jDoisoned with unintelligible jargon, fed on mys-
tery, crammed with fables, drenched with absurdities,
occupied by puerile pursuits, mechanical devotions,
sacred nonsense — until the mind, fascinated, becomes
an automaton! Their men and their women chant
without one sensible word. Forever prepossessed
against truth, they become enemies to reason, and
they leave these places, if at all, with manacles on their
energies — their spring gone : too humiliated to soar,
the most fertile genius becomes barren, and yields but
thorns ! Oh, God ! shall this be America's education ?
Are men to revolt thus against God and their country,
and ready to cut the throats of all who question the
veracity of their faith, while the corrupted minds of its
young men and women become fascinated by its pa-
geant, and know no duty above this, to self or country?
64 THE GREAT AMERICAN" BATTLE.
Where shall we look for America's strength, when
time-serving priests are at eYerj corner, swayed by no
other interests than to curse and curb her freedom, and
who, maugre all efforts, go on to captivate, and de-
stroy.
It is only by educating our OAvn people in our OAvn
schools, that we can counteract this. Let America rise
and thus lay her axe at the root of superstition and
priestly power. Let America teach one lesson — that
superstition is incompatible with liberty, and can never
furnish good citizens. Thou vile dust, know America
can break thy sceptre, level ihj throne to the dust, and
God can destroy thee from this land thou hast sought
to enslave.
Popery has a right to be an enemy to reason, for
that is to annihilate it. These creeds of imposture must
be overturned. Shall America be sacrificed to this
frightful delirium?
"When she consults the legitimate desire of her heart,
she will find that Eome is against her liberty and hap-
piness.
Infuse courage, then, into those who seek to break
this illusion ; console the prejudices of those who have
never examined, and dissipate the incertitude of those
whoni doubt has made unhappy — take away the enemy
v^^ho afihcts America's mind, and kindles anger in her
neighbor's heart. Snatch from imposture all the chil-
dren, that America may no longer blush to be enslaved
by this artifice.
Can a cause so precious — benefits so tangible — be
CHILDHEX IX CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 65
sacrificed to such a hope, with such a convincing expe-
rience ?
The thorns are scattering all along her "way-sides.
Every man and every woman who has the courage
to announce truth can attack error, to battle these evils
which threaten our liberties. It is glorious to deprive
imposture of its influences ; it is loving our neighbor
as ourselves, to rid and despoil this Komish tyranny of
its empire here. It will evaporate before the sturdy
examiner, not by casting opprobrium or discourteous
language, that its absurdity can be judged and discrep-
ancy shoA\-n with our liberty, but by the test of truth,
Avhich is ever consistent with itself. There is a marked
difference in this system, between the mind and the
heart. Priests vrho fan the flame of discord are rebels
to our ruling power.
Theological autocrats governing American freemen,
controlling her legislature, her executive; assuming to
give divine lustre to tlicir persons, Avhile they blind
and bend American freemen beneath their galling yoke.
America owes something to America. This Eomish
creed prescribes all phghted faith, when it is a question
of interest. And the maxim of their church is, "no
faith to be held with heretics."
This Eoman Pontiff, it is well known, has the right
of relieving all oaths, of annulling all vows. He has
arrogated the power of deposing kings, and absolving
Americans from obligations of political fidelity, and
thus the political church of Kome schools American
fi'eemen ! Let these haughty prelates become citizens
66 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
and cease to disturb public tranquility — wbat an im-
petus to the mind of America, to sound morality, to
the diffusion of truth, to that improved legislation, were
this trammel taken off, and unlimited freedom given to
thought ! Romish priesthood is opposing it at every
step, taking the children of American sons and daugh-
ters, bandaging their faculties, wrapping them in swad-
dling clothes — this civil and spiritual mixture must be
overthrown.
It is the outrage perpetrated on American liberties
that has aroused the American party to immolate its
fame and genius at the shrine of conscience. It has
moved to purpose, and will give a verdict. When un-
suspecting, tolerant Protestants fled to Bishops and
Priests confidingly, for the education of their sons and
daughters, they knew not that, with a tenacity which
never swerves, every study, invention, and dream, is
to make her a dog, or jackal, without her books, her
monument?., or her great name.
CHAPTEK Y.
INTERIOR VIE^V OF ROMAN CATHOLIC
INSTITUTIONS IN AMERICA.
" The sword of the hero,
The staff of the sage,
Whose valor and wisdom
Are stamped on the age.
Time-liallowed mementos
Of those who have riven
The sceptre from tyrants,
' The lightning from heaven !'
Amekica never had but one Motlier, and slie it Avas
to whom Solomon gave the child. It knew the gram-
mar and rndiments of the Mother tongue, and could
read strains of Heavenly music from its birth ; and,
lest the glory of its intellect should be too bright for its
young eyes, and cause it to stagger under the trance of
delight, its Mother, disinterested and kind, taught it its
infirmities, and guarded it by her education from the
stranger, who, passionless, bloodless, and didactic,
might wander around, take the lustre from the land-
scapes, the birds out of the garden, the children out of
the schools, and leave its soul pining at the sight of
living corpses, w^alking without shrouds! This w^as
seventy -nine years ago, the happiest moment of Amer-
ica's life. She was born a JSTation. The jubilee was
68 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.