Rome is the same tyrannical system now, where she has the power, that she ever has been, and for ever must be. Wo to this land of ours, if ever Rome gets the ascendancy here! Her creed is the same here and now, in this respect, that it has everywhere been, and must always be. It is her boast that she is always right, and knows no change. She practices her unholy inquisitorial and Jesuitical doctrines in this country, as far as she can and dare act them out. Her whole system is adverse to our republican inst.i.tutions and she hesitates not to declare it. She has publicly burned our Bible in different States in this Union, and recently, in New York and Pennsylvania. Archbishop Hughes, the Head of the Catholic Church in this country, has taken an oath, administered by the Pope of Rome, of which this is a part:
"Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said Lord (the Pope) or his aforesaid successors, I will, to my utmost power, _persecute and wage war with_."
The Church of Rome declares all who are not its members to be heretics.
It is painful, in view of all these things, to see an old Protestant minister, whose head has been withered by the frosts of seventy winters, openly in the field advocating a Church whose Bishops, Priests, and members are "drunken with the blood of saints."
There is but one remaining feature of your singular address to Know Nothing Methodist Preachers to be replied to, and I am through. You a.s.sail the new party on the score of its _secrecy_, and of its _concealment_ of its acts from the public. Had this objection come from any one but a Methodist Preacher, and a known advocate of _Cla.s.s-meetings being held with closed doors_, I would now dispose of it without occupying as much s.p.a.ce as I shall do in my concluding remarks!
Notwithstanding all the _secrecy_ in the new Order of Know Nothings has been set aside by the act of the National Council which created it; and notwithstanding our members tell all about their Councils, where and when they meet, and our orators read out and publish to the world our obligations, rules, and principles, it is still objected that ours is a secret Order, liable to be used for bad purposes; that we travel about with dark lanterns; that our proceedings are not restrained by the wholesome check of public opinion!
Now, this, the great objection to our Order, comes from men who belong to Lodges of Free Masons and Odd Fellows, and who have taken all the _binding_ oaths attached to the different _degrees_ of these respective Orders! The same objection is urged against the American party, by men who belong to the Order of Sons of Temperance, who have deemed a _rigid secret organization_ necessary to combat successfully a _domestic_ evil!
It is urged in bitterness against the Order, by demagogues and partisans, who have acted for years with the _secret political conclaves_ of their respective parties, who have held their meetings with _closed doors_--kept their _places_ of meeting a profound secret--and when they have adjourned, they have enjoined _secrecy_ upon all present! Last, but not least, this _secret feature_ is urged against the American organization by the vile apologists for the Catholic Church, and its corrupt Priesthood and membership, in this country.
These demagogues know that the Roman Catholic Church is a _secret society_, directed by a talented, designing, and villainous HIERARCHY--absolutely controlled by an _anti_-Republican Priesthood, to a degree which has never been exercised by any political party in the known world! The _Confessional_ is a secret tribunal, before which every member of that Church is required to make known, not only _immoral_ actions, but every thought and purpose of the heart, and upon pain of incurring the anathema of the Church, which is equivalent to a sentence of eternal d.a.m.nation! The corrupt order of JESUITS, the infamous society of SAN FEDESTI, and the infinitely infernal society of IRISH RIBBON MEN--these are all oath-bound societies of the Catholic Church, connected directly with the horrid operations of the "_Holy Inquisition_."
Now, I put the question to any man of reason and common sense, if Roman Catholics and their _patriotic Democratic_ admirers and advocates, in this country, are not the last men on earth who should object to the _secret_ doings of the order of Know Nothings, even if their secrecy were kept up? Every Roman Catholic in the known world is under the absolute control of a secret society, by considerations not only of a _temporal_, but of an ETERNAL WEIGHT!
But I am not done with these _Democratic_ opposers of SECRECY. The Convention which formed the Const.i.tution of the United States, sat in the old State House in Philadelphia, _with closed doors, from the 25th of May to the 17th of September_, wanting only eight days of four months. That body of men had a Doorkeeper and Sergeant-at-arms, both under oath, to keep their doors barred, and all their proceedings a secret. So says Mr. Jefferson"s biography! And such men as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Harrison, Hanc.o.c.k, Hopkins, and others, composed that body! During the war of the Revolution, General Washington, Generals Lee, Wayne, Marion, and others, organized a _secret American Society_, with its branches extending from North to South, having their _pa.s.swords_, _signs_, and _grips_, and writing to each other in figures, and "an unknown tongue," as the Know Nothings have been doing, and all, too, with a view to oppose Foreign intrigues and oppressions! It is as well known as any political truth, that General WASHINGTON, at the time of his death, was the _President_ of the Cincinnati Society, a secret political society, in which, we see it stated on unquestionable authority, no man was eligible to membership unless he was a _native American_. The _Columbian Order_, known as the "_Tammany Society_," was a secret political society, and highly influential, and maintains its existence to this day, and without danger to the liberties of the country. Gen. SAM HOUSTON publishes to the world that himself and Gen. JACKSON were members of this Society. What say the _anti_-Americans to all these facts? Do they believe that Gen.
Washington, or Jackson, would have united with any a.s.sociation or order not purely American? Would either have entered into any political league, when _secrecy_ was enjoined, if he had not approved of the principle of secrecy in political a.s.sociations? Never! From the characters of Washington and Jackson--the sacrifices they made for their country, united with their fervid patriotism, and their known preference for every thing _American_, I do not doubt for one moment, that if they were both now living, they would unite with the veritable Order of Know Nothings!
I believe the hand of G.o.d to be in this very movement, and as much in the _secrecy_ of it, in the outset, as in any other feature. I regard the movement as one growing out of a great crisis in the affairs of our country, and a precursor of a sound, healthful, and vigorous nationality, and which will ultimately prevent the liberties of this country from being destroyed, by the machinations of such demagogues and factionists as now seek to _excuse_ Romanism, and fellowship Foreign Pauperism. Secret societies are only dangerous to despots and tyrants, and history shows that these above all others have made war upon them.
They have denounced and proscribed Masonry in every quarter of the globe, where they have had the power. The Pope, with the aid of his Cardinals, has crushed the ancient order of Free Masons in his dominions. There is not a Masonic Lodge in Italy. In our own country, not a single Catholic is to be found a.s.sociated with the order of Free Masons; and why? Masonry is founded upon the Bible, and requires the reading of the Protestant Bible in all its Lodges, and this don"t suit Romanism. We state these general and historical facts, without knowing any thing of our own knowledge of Masonry.
In the young and growing city of Knoxville, it is within our own knowledge, that many of the Irish Catholics attached themselves to the Order of the Sons of Temperance, with a view, as they said, of throwing around them the wholesome restraints of the Order. On the first visit of a priest to the city, commonly called "Father Brown," these Irish Catholics began to drop off one by one, until not one of them is now in the Order, and most of those who were, are daily seen drunk in our streets. Indeed, some of them in withdrawing had the candor to acknowledge that the priest required them to do so! And why? Because, in all the Divisions of the Sons of Temperance here, we have the Protestant Scriptures read, and have Protestant prayers offered up. This don"t suit the Church of Rome!
I have the honor to be, very truly and frankly,
W. G. BROWNLOW.
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND AARON V. BROWN, M. S.
SIR:--I have received by mail a pamphlet copy of your "Letter to the Bishops, Elders, and _other_ Ministers, Itinerant and _Local_, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South," covering twenty-eight octavo pages. I thank you for a copy of your _Pastoral_ address; and I am happy to be able to _infer_ from its teachings that you have made a profession of religion, before taking upon yourself "Holy Orders." I suppose the _time_ of your conversion, you date back to the memorable period when you "saw sights" on Mount Pisgah, and had conferred on you the degree of _Modern Seer_, and entered upon the duties of "High Priest" of Democracy! As I am one of the parties addressed, and the customs of the Church and the country require a response to so grave a doc.u.ment, I have felt it inc.u.mbent upon me to perform the task. I may style this the _Last_ epistle of Aaron, the Priest, and ill.u.s.trious Chief of Foreign Catholic Sag Nicht Locofocoism!
My first impulses were, upon reading your address, to call for your _credentials_, and to examine into your _authority_ for a.s.suming to dictate to the entire Ministry of the Southern portion of the Methodist Church. You must either enter the Ecclesiastical ring under the _imposition of the hands_ of BISHOP SOULE or _Andy Johnson_. If BISHOP SOULE ordained you for the Ministry, and set you apart as the Lieutenant-General of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the presumption is that he examined you on doctrinal points, and upon all questions affecting the government of the Church, as was his duty, and is our custom, and that he found you orthodox! It follows, as a matter of course, that you renounced your heresy you advocated in the Hartford Convention, held at Nashville, and that you obtained forgiveness for that and numerous other "sins of omission and commission"--aye, for the whole catalogue of your inward and outward iniquities, which so _eminently_ disqualified you for the work of the Ministry! But if _Andy Johnson_ ordained you for the work, of which there is no sort of doubt, the Church South, through me, protests against your authority, and utterly refuses to submit to your teachings. Our Church does not agree with Johnson on the "White Basis" issue, or the great question of slavery; and in proof of this, I cite to the fact of her separation from the North, in 1844, upon this very question. She has within her bounds of communion, rich men and poor, educated and uneducated, and is unwilling to unite with him in arraying the poor against the rich, or the unlearned against the learned. Nor does our Church believe that Jesus Christ was a Locofoco, as Johnson a.s.serts in his Inaugural, and held that Christianity and Democracy, in converging lines, led to the foot of Jacob"s Ladder, and thence to heaven, _via_ Mount Pisgah, from whose lofty summit you first beheld the promised land!
It therefore follows, that, in presenting yourself as a spiritual leader in the Church, called to the work, as you have been, by _Andy Johnson_, your case is fully met by a quotation from Job:
"Now there was a day when the sons of G.o.d came to present themselves before the Lord, and _Satan_ came also among them."
A second pa.s.sage, from the Book of Jeremiah, meets your case, and leaves no doubt that the inspired Prophet had you in his eye:
"We have heard the pride of Moab, (he is exceedingly proud,) his loftiness, and his _arrogance_, and his pride, and his haughtiness of heart.
"I know his wrath, saith the Lord; but it shall not be so; his _lies_ shall not so effect it."
To be candid with you, Gov. Brown, I regard your address, under all the circ.u.mstances, as a display of the most brazen-faced a.s.surance and the most unmitigated impudence I ever met with in my life! I have known for years that you were capable of great presumption, but in this insolent and dictatorial address you surpa.s.s _yourself_--you positively out-Herod Herod! In the whole history of the country, and of parties, I venture the a.s.sertion, that a parallel piece of impudence, and downright bold-faced a.s.surance, cannot be pointed to, as the act of any partisan.
It is really past all belief, if I had not your production before me.
But more of this hereafter.
Copies of your pamphlet were distributed through the aisles and seats of the Annual Conference room in Nashville, and have been sent all over the South, to members of other Conferences. Your _proof-sheet_ was seen ten days before the meeting of the Middle Tennessee Conference, and your "work of faith and labor of love" was ready for distribution when the Conference first convened, but you held it back till the Conference was ready to adjourn, and to a period so late, that a reply, if one had been deemed necessary, could not be made. This was _cowardly_, and in keeping with your political tactics and code of morals. In saying that this was in keeping with your code of morals, I allude to the _Woodberry affair_.
I shall now take up your address, Governor, and wade through its twenty-eight pages of double-distilled Sag Nichtism, sublimated impudence, and concealed advocacy of _Romanism_, mixed up with contradictions, false a.s.sertions, and glaring absurdities, as it is, from beginning to end. In the opening paragraph, you predicate your right to instruct the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the entire Church, South, upon the real or a.s.sumed fact, that you are "The son of a now sainted father, who for forty years ministered at your altars, the co-laborer of that n.o.ble band of Christian ministers, who, under Asbury and c.o.ke, founded your Church in America!"
Alas, that any "sainted Father" should be represented by so degenerate a son--an irreligious son--not a member of any Church--but having the hardihood, in the face of those who know the facts, to disguise himself in the priestly robes of a "sainted Father"--like an a.s.s in a lion"s skin, to _bray out_ against better men than himself, or, like a wolf in sheep"s clothing, to _steal into the fold_, where that Father was accustomed to minister in holy things, and with soft and honeyed words, and hypocritical teachings, and Satan-like misrepresentations, seek whom he may devour! You tell the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," that you really "approve" their "creed," and, what is still more soul-cheering, you have "witnessed their growth and progress for years, with the highest satisfaction." This is very _condescending_ in the "son of a now sainted father!" It is quite flattering! But these "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," would receive all this with a greater degree of allowance, if they did not believe that your generous patronage, so lavishly bestowed upon them and their "creed," was prompted by a principle of which _selfishness_ is the soul! They believe, and so express themselves in conversation, that your forced smile of approbation, your reluctant eulogy, have both been wrung from you, because you are a sycophantic partisan suitor for patronage, in the way of votes for your party. These Clergymen whom you address, think it a great pity that the "son of a now sainted father" should exhibit so much "satisfaction" at witnessing their prosperity, in _theory_, and manifest not one particle in _practice_. They think that you would be in your proper place, to be found among the _mourners_, instead of the _teachers_ in their Church; and that it is high time, considering your age in life, and the extent of your iniquities, that you should be found upon your knees, in an altar full of fresh straw, at an old-fashioned Camp-Meeting, asking the pious to pray for you, and G.o.d, for the sake of the forty years labors of "a now sainted father," to have mercy upon you, and save your sinful old soul from that death that never dies.
Why, Sir, the Devil himself would blush to perpetrate such an act of arrogance as you have done, in thus volunteering your advice to the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," of the Methodist Church. An old political party hack, who is not now, and never was, a member of any Church--an intriguing old sinner, who never even attends Church, and who, in this respect, shows that he neither fears G.o.d, respects the Christian Sabbath, nor "approves the creed" of any orthodox denomination, to be lecturing a numerous body of Clergymen, as to what they ought or ought not to do, it is the culmination of all that is called effrontery! The "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the Methodist Church, wish the _evidence_ of your conversion to G.o.d, before they consent to obey you, as "having the rule over them." Your approval of their "creed," and the "satisfaction" with which you have witnessed their progress, is not sufficient to satisfy their doubting minds, as long as you continue to ride into Nashville on Sabbath, and retail political slang at the INN, or read Sag Nicht papers at the _Union Office_, to the neglect of the house of G.o.d, and the evil example set before young men, against the statute in such cases made and provided!
We must, as Ministers, hear you relate your experience, in a regular cla.s.s-meeting. Nay, more, knowing your _raising_, and your ability to "deceive, even the very elect," we must see you down upon your marrow-bones, surrounded by noisy and zealous officials, pounding you on the back, and exclaiming, as in the days of your "sainted father," _Pray on, Aaron_! We must hear you _groan_--we must see your sinful old bosom _heave_--we must witness the falling of _big tears_, as you publicly confess and manfully repent of your misdeeds--of the whole catalogue, of all the inward and outward iniquities of your past life--your sins of omission and commission, which G.o.d knows are more numerous than the hairs upon your old sinful head! I say we must see all this, and even more, before we can have faith in your teachings, as big as even a grain of mustard seed!
But you are the "son of a now sainted father"--you derive great "satisfaction" from the "growth and progress" of Methodism--you "approve" the Methodist "creed"--and hence, a glorious future awaits the Methodist Church: _provided_ always, that her "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" hearken to and obey your teachings, a thing they are very certain not to do, in the matter under consideration. It is a melancholy fact, that many of the sons of Methodist, and other Ministers, are very wicked and unpromising men; and it is equally true, and certainly notorious, that where they turn out to be sinners, they are sinners above all offenders, dwelling either at Jerusalem or elsewhere! I have no hesitancy in p.r.o.nouncing you as _hard a case_, in a moral point of view, as ever came before the Church, and the only appropriate reply her ecclesiastical dignitaries can make to your address, is to appoint a day of fasting and prayer to G.o.d, for your conversion, to be observed throughout her borders. I now, as the appointed organ of the Church, set apart the first day of January, 1856, and I pray you, as one desiring the salvation of your soul, to be in the spirit and in a proper frame of mind on that day! Humble yourself before G.o.d--tell him that you were in error in stealing the livery of Heaven to serve the Devil in! Tell him that you are an old worn-out political hack--that you have grown gray in the service of sin--that during the whole of a somewhat eventful life, your labors have been in the dirtiest pools of party politics--that you have been insincere and unscrupulous in all your teachings and acts--that you stand before the people of Tennessee publicly branded by _eight_ respectable and reliable citizens of Wilson county, as a _falsifier_ in the Know Nothing controversy of the past summer--and that you are sorry for having come forth steeped to the nose and chin in political profligacy, to lecture grave Clergymen upon subjects you ought to set at their feet and learn lessons about!
Tell your G.o.d, what he doubtless knows, that though the "son of a now sainted father," you are as full of devils as ever Mary Magdalene was--that like the "Imps of Sin," in Milton, these "yelp all around"
you--that this is no reflection upon a "now sainted father," whose seeming neglect of your early training grew out of his continual absence from home, as is the case with most Methodist Preachers,--aye, tell your G.o.d, that once out of this sc.r.a.pe, you will never be caught in another of the kind! You say,
"From the foundation of our government, it has been a conceded and settled doctrine, that the various religious denominations should not, as such, intermeddle with the political contests of the day. No instance is now remembered where they have done so!"
This is a remarkable sentence, and partakes of the nature of your Wilson county a.s.sertions! The history of the Church, and of the world, contradicts every word of the foregoing, and demonstrates that the "settled doctrine" of the Catholic Church, has ever been, as it still is, to "intermeddle with the political contests of the day." I will trouble you with two instances in which "religious denominations, as such," have been guilty of what you deny. The Albany (N. Y.) State Register, a paper which usually does not say what it cannot maintain, states that ARCHBISHOP HUGHES has issued a mandate, _commanding_ all Catholics in the Albany District, in the exciting State election now coming off, to cast their votes for Mr. Crosby for the Senate. But Roman Catholics, you falsely tell us, never "intermeddle with the political contests of the day:" O no!
The other "instance now remembered," is the one in which you were a candidate for a seat in the Legislature of Tennessee, in the county of Giles: this was, according to my recollection, in 1831, or a quarter of a century ago. At that time, there was a small Manual Labor School in Giles, which had been incorporated by the Legislature, and at the head of which was a _Presbyterian_. The gentleman who ran against you, if not a member of the Presbyterian Church, "approved" their "creed," and "witnessed their growth and progress for years with the highest satisfaction." _You_ charged upon the stump that the Presbyterians were seeking to establish their religion by law, to unite Church and State--appealed to the Methodist and Baptist to put them down by electing you, with a promise that you would check their march by counter-legislation--and you were elected upon this issue. At the same time, as the oldest inhabitants of Giles know, there were not fifty Presbyterians in the county! But "no instance is remembered" in which one sect has intermeddled with another--O no! You say:
"In the mutations of parties in this country, a new one has lately arisen, to which, I apprehend, more of the Methodist ministers have attached themselves, at least in the State of Tennessee, than might have been expected. This party, known as the Know Nothings, is so _peculiar_ in its organization, that it seems strange to me that any minister or professor of religion should be willing longer to continue in it."
Your apprehensions are well-founded, when you suppose that a very large proportion of the Methodist ministers in Tennessee are either members of this new party or sympathize with it. And, sir, more of the ministers of other denominations than you seem to be aware of, have either attached themselves to this party, "in the mutations of parties," or act with it, and endorse its aims and objects, than you have yet dreamed of! And "it seems strange" to these ministers, and thousands of the purest and best laymen in the Protestant ranks, "that any minister or professor of religion should be willing longer" to oppose the principles of this party, or array themselves under the black flag of Papal Rome, and of the pauper emigrants with whom she is flooding our land! But, sir, the object of your Address is, to persuade if you can, and if not, _to drive_, by motives of fear, the Clergy of the Methodist Church from their position on this great American and Protestant question. Alas, how little does the "son of a sainted father" understand the material he attempts to work upon! Methodist ministers are free men, the equals of other moral and upright men in heroic virtues, and far in advance of that of politicians in Tennessee who believe parties in religion, as in politics, are only "held together by the cohesive power of public plunder," and who a.s.sume to direct public opinion from a principle, of which _selfishness_ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end!
Sir, the violence, bitterness, and the very inflammatory tone, not to say language, of your Gallatin, Lebanon, and Columbia speeches, are enough, it seems to me, to _nauseate_ every good and conservative citizen, and to disgust every "Bishop, Elder, and other Ministers, Itinerant and Local, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South." Even in this Address, you insult these ministers on every page. I see not how any preacher, with a true Protestant and American heart in him, can read this address of yours through, without rising up from his seat and saying: "I have voted with this Anti-Protestant and Anti-American party for the last time."
In warning Methodist ministers to withdraw their sanction and approbation of Know Nothingism, you say:
"I therefore call upon them this day to come out of these lodges, and never return to them: at all events, never return to them until all _secrecy_, all their bits of red paper, (indicating _blood_, even by the selection of color,) all their signs and signals, are utterly abolished and dispensed with. I call upon them to do this, and to do it forthwith--by their hopes of heaven--by their obedience to the word of G.o.d--by their allegiance to the Const.i.tution and laws of their country--to come out from any party which has adopted a mode and plan of organization so fatal to the peace of society, and the progress of true religion."
What egotism! _You_ call upon them! You make a freer use of the personal p.r.o.noun _I_, than even old Parson Longstreet, the Know Nothing slayer of Mississippi. To pa.r.s.e your different sentences syntactically, nothing else is necessary but to understand the first person singular, and to repeat the rule. Not only your verbiage but your sentiment is thus egotistic throughout!
Your appeal to the ministers to come out of this organization, on the ground of its _secrecy_, is a species of demagoguism, the more disgusting when it is considered that you are a _Free Mason_, and have, by all the arts and blandishment of your nature, sought to induce ministers to go into that organization. But, then, there is no violation of law or the Const.i.tution in _Masonry_--"fatal to the peace of society and to the progress of true religion"--no, nothing! Understand me: I am not opposed to Masonry.
On this subject of the Romish creed, which you excuse, and even _advocate_, you admit that there are "_alleged_ abuses," which have prompted the Protestant Churches to unite themselves with this new Order! Then you insultingly tell these Churches this tale:
"But they ought to have remembered, that even a virtuous indignation can never justify _proscription and persecution_: these bring no remedy to the real or supposed evils, but are sure to increase and aggravate them. These errors in faith, and abominations in practice, if they really exist, were known to the Wesleys, and c.o.kes, and Asburys, who founded your Church: to the Lees, the Bruces, the Capers, the Logan Dougla.s.ses, the Summerfields, and the Bascoms, who subsequently extended and adorned it. But they never proposed to kindle, in this enlightened age of Christianity, the consuming fires of RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION."
Now, sir, every distinguished "founder" of the Methodist Church you have named, from WESLEY to BASCOM, has written and preached against the "errors in faith, and abominations in practice," of the Romish Church, and they each and all have taken this very ground upon the religious issues. I have heard _three_ of these men preach, and I am familiar with the writings of the rest, and know whereof I speak.
You _intentionally_ deceive and misrepresent the American party, when you charge that they seek to proscribe one cla.s.s of our citizens--that they desire to interfere with the rights of conscience--and to say _how_ men should worship G.o.d. Why don"t you inform your readers that Archbishop Hughes, and other Catholic Bishops, were the first to introduce religion into political discussion in this country? This would not suit your purposes--it suits your objects, taste, and inclination better, to slander the American party by wholesale, and to charge upon its members the atrocities committed by your foreign and pauper allies.
We only choose to vote against them, and to vote for American-born citizens and Protestants: which is as much our _right_, as it is the right of these foreign Catholics to vote against and proscribe American Protestants. For this, you and your villainous a.s.sociates exhaust the whole vocabulary of Billingsgate upon the American party. What is their offence? Why, they simply place certain questions before persons desiring to act with them, which they think, at least, may affect the national welfare, and before the people of the Union, and ask their opinion of these questions at the ballot-box. The American party has always denied, and I again reiterate the denial, that we do, at all proscribe, or in any way interfere with, any cla.s.s of our foreign citizens, save that we propose to send _convicts_ from European prisons back to their own native and infamous dens, as fast as they land here--but these are not _citizens_ of ours. I appeal to our Platform, and our Book of Const.i.tutions, and I offer to any man a handsome reward--any man who will produce in either a statement containing the proscription you falsely charge against us. I now say, Gov. Brown, either do this, or cease your empty vaporing against the _proscriptive_ features of our system, as you are pleased to style it. You declaim most l.u.s.tily in favor of religious liberty for Catholics, which you know we do not propose as a party to interfere with; and this you plead for at the altar of Methodist "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," who know there is no religious liberty for Protestants where Catholics have the power to prevent it! You plead in the most plaintive tones for the rights of foreign Catholics to be sworn into good citizens in less than _one year_ after they land here, but do not seem to remember the American Protestant wives and children, who have to subsist on charity during our severe winters, in consequence of their husbands and fathers being elbowed out of employment by the compet.i.tion of foreign pauper laborers!
Sir, the American party, if in power, would put a stop to that proscription from office that has always characterized the party with which you act, and which has made the present Administration so very and so justly odious to the country. Proscription, indeed! Was there ever such _glaring_ and _actual_ proscription for the sake of religious and political creeds committed as by the present Administration? The infamous Sag Nicht party with which you act, and of which you are a leader and a High Priest, though the "son of a now sainted father," has applied the political guillotine to almost every man in office who has dared to differ with them in their high estimate of foreign paupers and Catholic vagabonds, in many instances turning out native-born Protestants, and filling their places with foreign Catholics. And yet, with a degree of effrontery that throws the Devil far into the shade, you turn round and charge the American party with proscription, and ask the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," of the Methodist Church, "by their hopes of heaven--by their obedience to the word of G.o.d--and by their allegiance to the Const.i.tution and laws of their country," to come out from a party so proscriptive! Why, sir, you out-Herod old Herod himself! Your teachings contrasted with your practice, would cause a crimsoned negative to settle on the cheeks of old Pilate! And still you are the "son of a now sainted father"--you "approve" the "creed" of Methodism, and have "witnessed its growth and prosperity for years, with the highest satisfaction!"
You quote from the Declaration of Independence, to show that toleration should be extended to Catholics and foreigners, and then insultingly add, as if you supposed no Methodist minister had ever perused the writings of Mr. JEFFERSON:
"These are the words of Mr. Jefferson, but the immortal sentiment springs directly from the word of the living and true G.o.d. No: persecution at the stake, or by exclusion of Catholics from office, is not the weapon to be wielded by the Protestant Churches."