DISCOURSE AT THE HABITING of an Ursuline Nun, with A HISTORY OF The Order, THE OFFICE FOR THE CEREMONY OF RECEPTION, AN ABSTRACT of the Rule of St. LETTER TO CHARITABLE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, IN BEHALF OF THE CATHOLIC CONGREGATIONS WHICH SUFFERED by the GREAT FIRE IN CHARLESTON, WORKS OF DR. ENGLAND. PART III. (CONTINUED.) MISCELLANEOUS. THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. [This series of letters was occasioned, as the short note accompanying the extract from the "Southern Religious Telegraph," which is prefixed to it, shows, by the denunciations made against Catholics, in this and similar publications, as the enemies of civil freedom. It contains a brief history of the origin, progress, and commencing decline of the systematic effort to crush the rights and liberties of the Catholic communion, by classing its members with criminals against the state; an analysis of the theory of the Federal Government of the United States, in its relation to moral and religious questions, in which the essential difference between it and the European polity of the middle ages is pointed out; a defence of the Catholics of the United States against the accusation of hostility to its civil institutions; and a delineation of the course of policy which the party call, ing itself Evangelical," would seek to carry out, by means of a Christian party in politics.' The letters were first published in the United States Catholic Miscellany," numbers 4-15, of Vol. XI. for 1831, and afterwards republished in a pamphlet.] 66 To the Editors of the United States Catholic Miscellany. GENTLEMEN:-I send you herewith the Southern Religious Telegraph, to which you requested my attention. I have carefully perused the article entitled, "The Republic in Danger!" and pray you to give it insertion in your next publication. I shall, God willing, send you a few letters which will express my sentiments, not only upon this very unbecoming production, but upon other topics connected with the party from which it emanates, and regarding the spirit by which that party is animated and urged on. I shall, I trust, be able to send you my first communication by the close of this week, or early in the next. I have the honour to remain, gentlemen, VOL. IV. B. C. 1 From the Southern Religious Telegraph. Richmond, Va., July 1, 1831. the imagination, so fondly entertained, in- | stupifies conscience and blinds the understead of diminishing, increases the danger to which it is exposed. Whatever good citizens may imagine, there is danger; the republic is invaded by enemies that are plotting its destruction, more numerous and more powerful than the hostile armies of '76; and, what renders its condition the more hazardous, is the fact that the assaults of the enemy are so insidious, that they are not generally observed by the people. Let good citizens look around them-we would give no false alarm-let them look at the encampment of the enemy, and see the hostile powers arrayed against the republic, and they will be convinced that the present is not the time to dream that all is safe. Intemperance has invaded the whole land; it has been cutting down 30,000 citizens annually, for the last ten years! Had a foreign power made all this devastation, the cry of, To arms!" "to arms!" would have been reiterated in every part of the republic; the whole people would have risen, en masse, to drive out the invader; but, even now, after hundreds of thousands have been immolated as victims of destruction, after the alarm has been sounded in every part of the land, only 300,000, of 12,000,000, have enlisted in the ranks of those who have solemnly resolved to drive out the enemy. While the land has been stained with the blood of his victims, many of our political watchmen who ought to see that the republic receives no detriment, have been so intent on elections, that they have not appeared to know of this invasion. The same enemy has plundered our citizens of millions of dollars annually. Had one half of this sum been contributed for the education of men to give sound religious instruction to the thousands of the uninstructed and prejudiced in this country, or to send the blessings of Christianity to the deluded heathen, some of our political seers would have raised the cry of enthusiasm!" "These bigoted fanatics will drain the people of their money, and ruin the country!" But there is no bigotry, no fanaticism, it seems, in drunkenness. There is no danger when the guardians of the republic sleep, while millions are plundered from the people, to prepare an offering of human blood for this insatiable Moloch. standing, and withholds the only light which can guide human reason aright, and makes the whole man a superstitious slave to the impositions of a crafty priesthood. Already, "the beast" numbers half a million of subjects in these United States; and the morality and practices of this communion accord so well with the views and feelings of thousands of the descendants of Protestants, who cannot endure the "bigoted rules" of Presbyterians, that the industrious efforts of the minions of the Pope to extend his authority in our land, are regarded with more complacency and delight, than any enterprise in which Christians have engaged to diffuse the light and influences of the Gospel. Yes; it is well known that the anti-Christian moralists of our times have more sympathy for the monster that is forging chains to bind them, than they have for any denomination of enlightened Christians in the land; and here the danger is the more imminent, because it is unseen. The tolerant friends of Popery, who seem to regard it as differing little from the religion of the Bible, or of Protestants, and the indifferent spectators, know not its influence; its power to excite the imagination, captivate the senses, and enslave the mind to forms of superstition, while no truth is brought to bear on the conscience or the heart; nor do they appear to know the fact, which is demonstrated by the whole history of Popery, that civil and religious liberty, as understood in this country the last half century, cannot coexist with the laws of the papal communion. If the latter are administered, liberty must die; from the nature of things, it is impossible for them to flourish together. Some say that a bad man injures no one but himself; this is often said of the intemperate man: "Poor fellow! he injures no one but himself." But it is not true: a bad man injures all with whom he has influence, (and every one has influence somewhere ;) he injures the community in which he lives: he injures the republic. Now, in addition to the dangers threatened and the injuries inflicted, by some hundreds of thousands of the subjects of Popery and intemperance, there are thousands of others whose example and influence, even while they plume themselves for patriots, are injuring the republic. Popery has invaded the land, and is laying This is true of all profane swearers who the foundations of an empire, with which, take the name of God in vain, and thus if it prevail, the enlightened freedom of the provoke him to come out in judgment republic cannot coexist. Let no one be sur- against them; and of all Sabbath-breakers, prised that Popery should here be noticed who are weakening the restraints of virtue in connexion with intemperance: for next and countenancing vice, and encouraging to the fire which burns out reason and con- others to neglect the instructions and ordiscience, that power is to be dreaded which | nances of the church of Christ, the only efficient means which has ever been known | them from rejoicing on this day. Let these for saving a people from gross ignorance, objects of prayer be often commended to wickedness, and superstition. This, too, is God in earnest supplication-for if He visit true of all gamblers, and of all the votaries this people in judgment as their national of dissipation, whose example is pernicious sins deserve, scenes may yet be witnessed to the community. The republic, also, re- in our country which will fill the boldest ceives detriment from infidels, and all the hearts with dismay. varying tribes of anti-Christians that inhabit the land. They may, perhaps, be wellmeaning people; they may not intend to injure the public: but such is the nature of their principles, that they cannot avoid doing injury. They often injure much better men than themselves, who at first pity them, but at length are seduced by their flattery, or pernicious errors. The danger to the republic, from men of this stamp, has been increased by the fact that they fill some of its important places of trust; so many of them had, by some means, obtained such stations a year or two since, that no Christian could speak plainly of the dangers to which his country was exposed, without being charged with the crime of "mingling religion with politics!" They seemed to regard the wise provisions of the Constitution to prevent the establishment of religion by law, as an ordinance to consign the world of politics to the dominion of infidelity. They seemed to think that they had an exclusive right to reign in the political world; hence the charge of "intermeddling with politics," when good men spoke or acted with reference to existing evils, as if they had no interest in transmitting our republican institutions unimpaired to their children; hence the outery raised against the Rev. Dr. Ely, for sentiments which he published relative to the importance of electing men of good principles, who could be trusted, for civil rulers: sentiments which no man but an infidel need blush to avow. We might speak of other evils which injure the public. It is well known that too many of the conductors of the political press, instead of informing the people, as watchmen ought, of the dangers which threaten the republic, are wholly engaged in promoting the supposed interests of their favourite candidates. It would not be difficult to show by facts that the evils of this course are incalculable—but we cannot now pursue this unpleasant topic. Enough, we hope, has been said of these dangers to persuade good men to pray for their country, and for all in authority. Let our countryits republican institutions, seminaries of learning, our rulers, and all the interests of the people, be remembered by Christians at the throne of grace, on the approaching Fourth of July. Prayer will not prevent LETTER I. Cum Proteus consueta petens è fluctibus antra VIRGIL, Georg. iv. Retir'd for shelter to his wonted caves: DRYDEN. To the Candid and Unprejudiced American MY FRIENDS:-It is some time since I requested your attention to an essay which appeared in the Christian Advocate, denying the fact of St. Peter having been at Rome. That periodical work was under the management of the Rev. Dr. Green, a Presbyterian minister of Philadelphia; and the appearance of the essay, together with the comments by which it was accompanied, were intended to insinuate that the claims made by the Roman Catholic church were unfounded. I have been informed by several respectable persons who differ from me in religious belief, that the evidence which I then hastily collected, was abundantly sufficient to remove every shadow of doubt, if any was entertained, that the glorious apostle was in Rome, was bishop of that city, and died there. The Rev. Dr. Green, has not, as far as I can discover, ever made any retraction, never corrected the error into which he contributed to lead his readers, nor exhibited the least symptom of regret for the part which he and his clerical brother played upon that occasion. I have since then marked with a greater degree of attention the proceedings of the body to which this minister belongs. Not only has it continued through a number of its presses, to vilify and to misrepresent Roman Catholics, but has by some of its publications endeavoured to excite against them the suspicions and the hatred of all friends of civil and religious liberty; not only has it sought by means of associations formed under its auspices, and directed by its influence, to secure for itself a widespread domination through the land; but it has collected vast sums of money, and pre pared to organize a host of zealots to sweep from the valley of the Mississippi the religion of the survivor of that noble assembly that created the liberty which it enjoys. Not content with the possession of the vast power which it at present holds, it looks forward to the securing of a future monopoly, of a more extensive and absorbing nature, and hesitates not in the triumph of its calculations to anticipate what it considers the inevitable arrival of the millennium of its glory, when the youth that it now trains up shall with its principles, assert their bloodless victory at the ballot boxes. Yet impatient of the delay, and desirous of hastening the happy epoch, it makes unceasing efforts, at one moment to procure from Congress a fatal precedent in even one act of what it styles Christian legislation; and at another, to render Catholics more odious to their fellow-citizens, or more suspected of being dangerous to the republic. Let it succeed in either way, and a passage will have been opened, through which it may pour the stream of its power, sweeping away the obstacles that retard, widening and deepening the channel by the impetuosity of its current, until, like so many new feeders, law gradually added to law, shall have caused church after church to disappear; and if then an effort should be made to stop the torrent, if the dam itself should not be swept away, the inundation would spread over the face of the land, and overwhelm the inhabitants. composed of the elect, the more sanctified and perfect of the land, as they esteem themselves; who leagued together in a holy covenant, to wage a war of extermination against Infidels and Roman Catholics, are urged by as pythonic a spirit against unbelievers and the beast," as their predecessors in Europe were against the Turk and the Pope, and frequently with the Turk against the holy father. I consider then the production which I now undertake to review, not as a document of any one of the churches of our country, but as publishing the well-known sentiments of a large body diffused through several of the churches and spread through all the states. Whatever the other objects of this body may be, I shall not now undertake to develope; but shall confine myself at present to showing that its treatment of Roman Catholics is not only uncharitable and unjust, but is manifestly at variance with the spirit of our political institutions. How far my leisure and other circumstances may subsequently lead me, if I shall proceed beyond this boundary, I cannot now determine. I shall give you from their own version of the Scripture, the description given by St. Paul of charity, in the thirteenth chapter of his first epistle to Corinthians. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemingly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things." My friends, I am not the only one who has beheld this, I am but one out of millions to whom it was visible, and, though silent until now upon the subject, I have Whoever reads their productions, whether heard, and you have heard the facts pro- they be the reports of Bible distributions, of claimed by very many, and I submit to you tract supplyings, of missions abroad or at whether the assertions which I make are home, of temperance societies, of revivals, not sustained, amongst others, by the arti- or Sabbath observance societies, or whatcle entitled "The Republic in Danger," ever else that belongs to the associated which has been published in the Southern body, will necessarily often meet with Religious Telegraph, in the city of Rich- mention of Roman Catholics, and one of mond, in Virginia, on the first day of this the leading exhibitions is the vulgar and unmonth, and reprinted in the Catholic Mis-kind substitution of nick-names for the apcellany of last Saturday. The body to which I thus allude, is not the Presbyterian church. There are a large number of the members of that church who have too much love of civil and religious liberty, too much affection for their fellowcitizens, and too deep a sense of common honesty to belong to the association. Nor is it confined to the Presbyterian denomination, though a number of the Presbyterian presses are the chief instruments for disseminating its principles; it embraces a vast multitude of other sects of various religious sentiments and forms of government. It is pellation by which this body is and has been known throughout the world. Great Britain, it is true, took the lead in this lowest species of offensive, unkind, unseemly, insulting, and therefore uncharitable scurrility; not indeed in point of time or of virulence, but of legalized and common phraseology. Luther previously had bestowed the appellation of Antichrist upon the Pope, for the first time in 1520; designated him as the Roman homicide, and threatened "that the name of the Pope should be taken from beneath the heavens:" he called him "a wolf possessed by an evil spirit." On a subse |