THE ROMISH CURSE.
"By the authority of G.o.d Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all celestial virtues, Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Cherubim, and Seraphim; and of all the Holy Patriarchs, Prophets, and of all the Apostles and Evangelists, of the Holy Innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb are found worthy to sing the new song of the Holy Martyrs and Holy Confessors, and of all the Holy Virgins, and of all Saints together with the holy elect of G.o.d; may he, ----, be d.a.m.ned. We excommunicate and anathematize him from the threshold of the Holy Church of G.o.d Almighty. We sequester him, that lie may be tormented, disposed, and be delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord: "Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways:" as a fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out for evermore, unless he shall repent him and make satisfaction.
Amen!
"May the Father, who creates man, curse him! May the Son, who suffered for us, curse him! May the Holy Ghost, who is poured out in Baptism, curse him! May the Holy Cross, which Christ, for our salvation, triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him!
"May the Holy Mary, ever virgin and mother of G.o.d, curse him!
May St. Michael, the advocate of the Holy Souls, curse him! May all the Angels, Princ.i.p.alities, and Powers, and all Heavenly Armies, curse him! May the glorious band of the Patriarchs and Prophets curse him!
"May St. John the Precursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St.
Peter, and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other of Christ"s Apostles together, curse him! And may all the rest of the Disciples and Evangelists, who, by their preaching converted the universe, and the holy and wonderful company of Martyrs and Confessors, who by their works are found pleasing to G.o.d Almighty, curse him! May the holy choir of the Holy Virgins, who for the honor of Christ have despised the things of the world, d.a.m.n him! May all the saints from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages, who are found to be beloved of G.o.d, d.a.m.n him!
"May he be d.a.m.ned wherever he be, whether in the house, or in the alley, or in the water, or in the church! May he be cursed in living and dying!
"May he be cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, and sleeping, in slumbering, and in sitting, in living, in working, in resting, and * * * and in blood-letting.
"May he be cursed in all the faculties of his body!
"May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly! May he be cursed in his hair; cursed be he in his brains, and in his vertex, in his temples, in his eyebrows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his shoulders, in his arms, in his fingers!
"May he be d.a.m.ned in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart, and purtenances, down to the very stomach!
"May he be cursed in his reins and his groins; in his thighs, in his genitals, and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and his feet, and toe-nails!
"May he be cursed in all his joints, and articulation of the members; from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet may there be no soundness!
"May the Son of the living G.o.d, with all the glory of His Majesty, curse him! And may heaven, with all the powers that move therein, rise up against him, and curse and d.a.m.n him; unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen! So be it. Be it so. Amen!"
Now, we ask all candid men whose eyes have not been blinded by the dust of Popery and Democracy, can a Bishop or Priest, a Jesuit or Catholic, with these oaths upon their souls, be true American citizens? Not without the guilt of perjury, as black as the altar of a Roman Confessional! And if guilty of such perjury, the penitentiary should be their canonical residence for life! Strange to say, however, the Chief Justice of the United States, Roger B. Taney, is a Roman Catholic! Gen.
Pierce"s Postmaster-General, James Campbell, is both a Roman Catholic, and a member of the Order of Jesuits, having taken this very oath! Roman Catholics are now on the Federal Bench in the United States: Roman Catholics fill the offices of Attorneys-general; Roman Catholics represent this Government abroad; and Roman Catholics fill post-offices, land-offices, and a variety of offices at home, out of which Protestants were driven by Pierce"s Administration, to make room for them!
LETTER FROM THOMAS A. R. NELSON, ESQ.
This gentleman, an able lawyer of East Tennessee, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and a member of the American party, was nominated an Elector for the State of Tennessee at large, by the American State Convention at Nashville, in February last. Though an ardent American--a great friend of _Mr. Fillmore_--and a member of the late Philadelphia Convention, and aided in the nomination of _Maj. Donelson_, he has been reluctantly compelled to decline the position of Elector. Under date of May 30, 1856, he addressed a letter of nine columns, of great force and ability, to _Messrs. A. W. Johnson, Robert C. Foster, 3d., John H.
Callender, William N. Bilbo, Sam"l. Pritchett, and E. D. Farnsworth, State Executive Committee of the American Party, Nashville, Tennessee_, declining the position. Although we regret his inability to serve, as do the whole party in this State, yet, if his letter could be placed in the hands of every voter in the State, we would be willing to risk the contest without further discussion. Such is our estimate of this doc.u.ment. For the benefit of "Old Line Whigs," and such Democrats as are disposed to excuse and apologise for Romanism, we give the four concluding columns of this letter. The five preceding columns are mainly occupied with an outline and defence of the action of the Philadelphia Nominating Convention, and a discussion of the slavery question--questions we had discussed in this work before this doc.u.ment came to hand. Mr. Nelson concludes thus:
"The Foreigners and Catholics were directly appealed to in the Presidential elections of 1848 and 1852. Who does not remember that, immediately preceding the election in 1844, fraudulent naturalization papers were manufactured in New York? Who has forgotten the Plaquemines fraud in Louisiana? Who has not heard of the abuse of Mr. Frelinghuysen for no other cause than that he was the President of the American Bible Society?
"But, without dwelling upon other ill.u.s.trations, look to the Democratic platform of 1852, and read the 8th section of the third resolution, which is in the following words:
""That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and sanctioned in the Const.i.tution, which makes ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith, and every attempt to abridge the present privilege of becoming citizens and the owners of soil among us, ought to be resisted with the same spirit which swept the alien and sedition laws from our statute books."
"During the last election in Tennessee, it was often said by Democrats that they were just as much opposed to the immigration of foreign criminals and paupers as members of the American party, but would not attach themselves to the latter because of their objections to its organization. But the Democratic Platform of 1852 contains no exception against criminals and paupers. The naturalization laws have, in practice, been found inadequate to their exclusion, and the platform, in effect, avows unqualified adherence to them without _abridgement_ or modification.
"These laws are, in substance, declared to have "_ever been cardinal principles_ in the Democratic faith." By its own avowal, the Democratic party is responsible for giving encouragement to the whole policy of foreign immigration. If that policy has flooded the country with criminals and paupers; if it has produced riots and bloodshed in our large cities; if it has endangered the religious as well as the civil liberty of Protestants; if it has swelled the ranks of Abolition and fanned the flame of Agitation--the Democratic party, by its own avowal, is amenable at the bar of public opinion for these astounding and deplorable results. Reckless of consequences, it has persevered in a system hazardous to the stability of our inst.i.tutions, because that system has annually swelled the number of its adherents, and increased the chances of its perpetual ascendency.
"Without adverting to the census tables, or repeating those familiar facts connected with the statistics of immigration which have been so extensively published, it is sufficient to observe that, under this continued patronage of the Democratic party, the immigration of foreigners has increased from a few thousands, twenty years ago, to nearly half a million in 1854.
"But the Democratic party cannot justly claim the exclusive honor of projecting or carrying out the system. More than twenty years ago, the Duke of Richmond declared, in substance, that he had conversed with most of the sovereigns and princes of Europe; that they were jealous of the influence of our republican inst.i.tutions upon their own Government; that they did not expect to conquer us as a nation, but designed the subversion of our Government by the introduction of the low and surplus population of Europe among us; that "discord, dissension, anarchy, and civil war would ensue, and some popular individual would a.s.sume the government and restore order, and the sovereigns of Europe, the emigrants, and many of the natives, would sustain him." He also said, in speaking of the United States, that "the Church of Rome has a design upon that country, and it will, in time, be the established religion, and will aid in the destruction of that republic."
"These statements of the Duke of Richmond are abundantly corroborated by other declarations, as well as the most undeniable facts which have occurred since their promulgation.
"I have in my possession, among various others, two small books published by "the American and Foreign Christian Union," 156 Chambers street, New York, the one ent.i.tled "Foreign Conspiracy," the other, "Startling Facts," both of which, as I infer from their contents, were written in the year 1834, long before the American party had an existence. The work ent.i.tled "Foreign Conspiracy" is composed of a series of articles originally published, over the signature of Brutus, in the New York Observer. They now appear with the name of the author, SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. His object in writing the work was to arouse public attention to the efforts then being made in Europe to propagate the Catholic religion in the United States, and to show its danger to our republican inst.i.tutions. He traces the origin of the Leopold Foundation in Austria, under the especial patronage of the Emperor at Vienna on the 12th May, 1829, and shows that one of its leading objects was "to promote the greater activity of Catholic missions in America."
"The letter of Prince _Metternich_ to Bishop Fenwich, of Cincinnati, under date, Vienna, April 27, 1830, is set out at length; and, in that letter, the Prince informs the Bishop, among other things, that the Emperor "allows his people to contribute to the support of the Catholic Church in America."
Numerous quotations are made from the letters of Foreign Bishops in the United States to their patrons at home, and, among the rest, on page 85, is the following statement, made by one of them, in regard to the people of the United States: "We entreat all European Christians to unite in prayer to G.o.d for the conversion of these unhappy heathen and obstinate heretics." But, forbearing to multiply quotations from this little work, admirable in most of its positions, my main object, in citing it, was to make the following extract, from page 15 of the preface, taken by the author from the lectures of the celebrated Frederick Schlegel, delivered at Vienna in 1828, where that distinguished foreigner says, "The true nursery of all these destructive principles, the revolutionary school for France and the rest of Europe, has been North America. Thence the evil has spread over many other lands, either by national contagion or by arbitrary communication;"
and also the following quotation, from page 118 of Mr. Morse"s book: "Austria, one of the Holy Alliance of sovereigns, leagued against the liberties of the world, has the superintendence _of the operations of Popery in this country_."
"In the tract ent.i.tled "Startling Facts for American Protestants," written in the year 1834, by REV. HERMAN NORTON, Corresponding Secretary of the American Protestant Society, from pages 27 to 39, an account is given of a London pamphlet ent.i.tled "New Plan of Emigration," the production of a Roman Catholic gentleman, a London Banker; in which a project for occupying the North Western States with the Roman Catholic population of Europe, is unfolded, together with _a map of the country_, and, among other things, it is said, on page 29: "The first settlements should be made in those fertile prairie districts situated on the southern sides of the Canadian lakes, _where slavery is unknown_. On page 28, the objects of this society, as set forth in this pamphlet, are stated to be,
""1. To provide the means for colonizing the surplus Roman Catholic population of Europe in our Western States.
""2. To do this in such a way as to create a large demand for articles of British manufacture.
""3. _To make Romanism the predominant religion of this country._"
"The census tables will show that, since these plans were set on foot, in England and in Europe, to break down our government, there has been an astonishing increase in the foreign immigration to this country. Great as it was prior to the Revolutions in Europe in 1848, it has been amazingly augmented since that time. Millions of foreign money have been collected in Europe and expended since the organization of the society for the propagation of the faith, at Lyons in France, about the year 1822, in the United States. While an Austrian Emperor has had the charge, in a good degree, of the propagation of the Catholic religion in the United States, the public authorities in various parts of Europe have defrayed the expenses of their criminals and paupers to this country, as was clearly shown by Congressional investigations.
"What do these facts prove? Why, that the declaration of the Duke of Richmond, that the crowned heads of Europe intended to subvert our government, was true. What more do they prove? Why, that the effort to establish the Catholic religion in this country has, for more than twenty years, been conducted with steady perseverance, until the Catholics, who, in 1850, were more numerous, as the census compendium shows, than any one denomination of Methodists, are now no doubt stronger than all the Methodists put together, and stronger than any other denomination of Protestants.
"While these publications have been before the American people for more than twenty years, Democratic leaders have received, with open arms, the swarms of foreigners who have settled upon our sh.o.r.es. What care _they_ for the slavery question, when they have seen this foreign immigration, according to the plan concerted in England, settling in the non-slaveholding States, and every year increasing the Abolition power? What care they for the Protestant religion, if the Catholics can only give them the numerical strength at the ballot-box? What regard have _they_ for the preservation of our liberties, when European despots are seeking to undermine them, if those despots only send such myrmidons as will shout hosannas to Democracy and drive from the polls peaceful American citizens who oppose them? Is the preservation of the Union a matter of any consequence to them? Do they not in vision behold its scattered fragments and contemplate new confederacies, with hosts of new offices and millions of spoil?
"Can any one doubt that the Democratic party is in league with all the dangerous elements that have disturbed and are continuing to disturb our once peaceful and happy country, and that they stickle at nothing when votes are at stake?
"Look to their conduct in running Mr. Polk as a tariff man in the North, and an anti-tariff man in the South! Look to the two lives of Ca.s.s. Look to their equivocal position as to slavery and the Union. Look to their appeals to foreigners and Catholics by name in the elections of 1844 and 1852, and probably in 1848. Look to their alliance with Free Germans and Fourierites, Free Soilers and Secessionists. And, above all, look to the miserable cant with which they raise the hue and cry of persecution in favor of the Catholics, and, indirectly, deny to Protestant ministers the right to make war upon a huge corporation, calling itself a church, dealing in human souls, reeking with the blood of martyrs, and begrimed with more than ten centuries of oppression.
"No wonder that they have vilified and denounced the American party with every term of opprobrium that our vocabulary can furnish. No wonder they talk of dark lanterns and secret oaths and midnight a.s.semblies. No wonder that they strive to frighten their followers with the notion that the American party is a raw-head and b.l.o.o.d.y bones, which should be shunned and avoided.
For, if honest men of that party will only take the trouble to shake off the control of their leaders: to think, examine, to read, reflect, and act for themselves, there are thousands of Democrats in the South who would scorn, like the American party, an alliance with Abolitionists, and there are tens of thousands of Protestant Union-loving Democrats everywhere, who have only confided in, to be deceived and betrayed by, their leaders, and, if they discover, as it is hoped they will, that they have brought them to the crumbling verge of an awful precipice, they have patriotism enough and Protestantism enough to break away from them rather than make the awful plunge.
"I regret that I am admonished by the length to which I have extended this communication, that I cannot now discuss the Catholic question, as I had hoped to do at the outset, and I shall present only a few disjointed remarks in connection with it.
"The American party does not seek to impose any religious test such as prevailed in the reign of Charles II., when two thousand Non-conformist ministers were driven from their pulpits, or such, as in the same reign, was imposed upon Roman Catholics and continued from 1673 to 1828. The American party does not propose that any religious test, of any kind, shall be imposed by law, upon any person whatever, but it does seek to organize a public sentiment on the Catholic question, just in the same mode that, in times past, parties have sought to organize public sentiment upon the tariff question--the bank question--the internal improvement question--the temperance question, and every other question which has been the subject of difference. If it is lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Whig, it is equally lawful to say--I will not vote for you because you are a foreigner. If it is lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Democrat, it is equally lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Catholic.
"Neither does the American party propose, in the slightest degree, to interfere with any of the rights secured to Roman Catholics, in common with others, by the Const.i.tution. If they choose to worship a great DOLL as the Virgin Mary--to burn tall wax-candles in daylight--to pray to G.o.d in an unknown tongue--to believe that a simple wafer is the actual body, and common wine the very blood of our Saviour--to enforce the celibacy of the clergy--to worship the host--to believe that old toe-nails and pieces of wood are precious relics--to prevent their people from reading the Bible--to refuse to send their children to Protestant schools--to retain the confessional and the nunnery--to pin their faith to unauthenticated traditions--to a.s.sert that theirs is the only true Church, and to perpetrate a thousand ridiculous mummeries--the members of the American party with one accord will say, molest them not, disturb them not, trouble them not; the religious privileges of this country are as free to them as they are to us, and we will not, by law or by violence, interrupt or interfere with them in the slightest degree. But knowing that the Catholic Church was for a thousand years allied to the State; that it claimed dominion, in temporal as well as spiritual affairs, over the kings of the earth; that it regards the Pope as the Vicegerent of the Almighty; that he wears the tiara as the symbol of his power in heaven, earth, and h.e.l.l; that Romanists treat all other professions as heretics; that its Archbishops, Bishops and Priests are sworn to persecute all who differ with them; that the persecuting spirit of that Church has been displayed, for centuries, in the most odious acts of cruelty as well as the most despotic tyranny that ever cursed the earth; that fire and f.a.ggot, confiscation and torture have been its favorite weapons; that no age, or s.e.x or condition has been exempt from its inhuman butcheries and demoniac l.u.s.ts; that it exterminated the Albigenses and Waldenses; that it caused the gutters of Paris to run with human blood on St. Bartholomew"s day; that it lighted the fires of Smithfield; that through the instrumentality of Tyrconnel and Catholic and Irish Rappadees, it perpetrated the inhuman atrocities of the Irish Ma.s.sacres; that, it drove the Huguenots from France, and the Puritans from England; that it has delighted in the chains and dungeons of the Inquisition, and shouted, with fiendish exultation, at the cries and groans of the victims in the _auto da fe_; that no republican government has ever flourished under its sway; that it regards ignorance as the mother of devotion, and denies the obligation of an oath; that it gave rise to the Order of Jesuits, the most detestable sect that the earth has ever seen; that, in the midst of the blaze of the nineteenth century, it has burned the Bible in America and imprisoned men and women in Europe for no other offence than that of reading it; that, abusing the freedom of the press and speech secured in the United States, it unblushingly avows that all Protestantism is heresy--that it is a crime--and punished in _Christian countries like Spain and Italy_ as a crime; that it has banished the Bible from Protestant schools, when under its control; that it has intermeddled in political elections, and is struggling for political power; that it wears a mask and claims to be harmless in this country for present effect, although it has never renounced one of its dogmas in any authoritative mode; that it is typified, in the Bible, as the Man of Sin and the Great Wh.o.r.e of Babylon; that it comes to us as an angel of light, but is allied with the Prince of Darkness: knowing all these things, and believing that the Roman Catholic Church, now that it is covered with the broad wings of Modern Democracy, partakes of its meat and is pampered by its patronage, is, infinitely, the most dangerous political power with which the people of the United States have ever been compelled to grapple, the American party invites all who love national liberty more than Democracy; who prefer civil and religious freedom to the spoils of office; who revere the memory of Tyndale, Luther, and Calvin; of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley; of the seven Bishops; of Fox; of the Puritan fathers; of Wesley and Hall; of the Reformers and Protestants of every name, and, more than all, of our revolutionary ancestors, to burst the fetters of party and come to the rescue of their bleeding country, bleeding at every pore from wounds inflicted by Democratic hands, amidst the jeers of European despots, the shouts of foreigners in our midst, and the taunts and sneers of Catholics and Jesuits all around us!
"Let not Protestant ministers be intimidated by the impudent a.s.saults of a venal press, or the fierce denunciations of infuriated politicians, from doing their whole duty in the pulpit and at the polls. No Presbyterian has ever denied to a Methodist the right to question his religious faith, and no Methodist will dispute the right of other denominations to impugn his creed. Methodists have a.s.sailed the Presbyterian doctrine of election. Presbyterians, in turn, have a.s.sailed their ideas of perfection and falling from grace. Both have controverted the Baptists" views of immersion, and all have denied the Episcopalians" doctrine of _apostolic succession_.
These and many other points of difference have, from the foundation of our government, often been the subjects of earnest, protracted, and excited discussion; but when did any American Protestant ever deny to another American Protestant the const.i.tutional right to differ with him in opinion, and to express that difference through the press, in the pulpit, or any other const.i.tutional mode? Yet, it has been reserved for Democratic presses to attempt, for electioneering purposes, to curb the free spirit of Protestant ministers: to denounce them as "REVEREND HYPOCRITES;" and, when beholding at home and abroad, on the land and on the sea, among Christians and Pagans, in the halls of legislation, in churches and schools, in free speech, and in a free press, and in ten thousand other forms, the magnificent and glorious results of the Reformation, to ask, with impudent a.s.surance, "WHAT HAS PROTESTANTISM DONE FOR THE WORLD?" Not satisfied with the storm of execration which such an infamous interrogatory produced, the Nashville Union and American, the leading Democratic paper in Tennessee, in a very abusive article ent.i.tled "_What has it accomplished?_" under date of April 26, 1856, thus speaks, among other things, of what he styles "the Know Nothing Organization:"
""_It has done more than this: it has gone into the Church and_ CONVERTED THE PULPIT INTO A POLITICAL ROSTRUM--_it has turned the attention of the ministry from_ THE PEACEFUL PATHS OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE ARENA OF POLITICAL TURMOIL--_it has pulled down the banner of the Cross, and placed in its stead_ THE RED FLAG OF INTOLERANCE AND PROSCRIPTION."
"While Protestant ministers, in the enjoyment of the rights secured to them by the Const.i.tution, have, as before stated, often engaged in controversies with each other as to their differences in matters of Church government and speculative faith, they have, with one accord, from the foundation of the government, preached and published their views against the Roman Catholic Church--which arrogates a superiority over them all, and stigmatizes them as sects--long before the American party ever had an existence. But because, in the course of events, it has become necessary for politicians to inquire what effect an acknowledgment of the temporal supremacy of the Pope may have upon our free inst.i.tutions, the Democratic party--if it is to be judged of by its organ--would gag the Protestant clergy, deny to them a right which they have always exercised, and, if they dare to oppose the colossal strides of Rome, denounce them as having converted the pulpit into a _political rostrum_," and as having raised "_the red flag of Intolerance and Proscription_."
"It is not for me to prescribe, nor do I desire to dictate the duty of Protestant ministers; but if, in the combined efforts which the Catholics have been making under the patronage of European despots and n.o.blemen, and the encouragement of Democratic demagogues in our own country, they see that this tremendous corporation has planted its footsteps in all our large cities--is possessing itself of the North-West and the Mississippi valley--and is encircling them, as it were, with a wall of fire: if they see that the newspapers and periodicals of that corporation have published doctrines in this free country which they would scarcely avow in the Roman Catholic countries of Europe: if, in one word, they believe that they are to be persecuted and exterminated by Catholics, or take care of themselves before it is too late--then Protestant ministers, agreeing as they do in all great doctrines, and differing only as to those which are not absolutely essential, will cease to disagree among themselves, at least until after they avert a common danger, and will rally as a band of brethren to resist, in such mode as they may deem proper, the encroachments and the insults of Rome, and all her satellites and allies.