EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY OF MEN PROCLAIMED
BY CHRIST.
"Be ye not called Rabbi. For one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye
are brethren" (Matt. xxiii. 8).
"God is not respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth
Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him" (Acts x. 34, 35).
"Jesus called them unto Him and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles
exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon
them.
"But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you,
let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be
your servant.
"Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and give His life as a ransom for many" (Matt. 25, 28).
PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY PROCLAIMED BY CHRIST.
"If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed, and ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. . . . If the Son shall make
you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John viii. 31, 32, 36).
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach
the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at
liberty them that are bruised" (Luke iv. 18).
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. iii. 17).
TOLERANCE AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE PROCLAIMED BY CHRIST.
"And they did not receive Him (Christ), because His face was as though
He would go to Jerusalem. And when His disciples, James and John, saw this,
they said, Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and
consume them, even as Elias did?
"But He turned and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit
ye are of:
"For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them"
(Luke ix. 53, 56).
"Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote the high priest's
servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus.
"Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath; the cup
which my Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it? For all they that take
the sword, shall perish with the sword" (John xviii. 10, 11; Matt. xxvi.
51, 52).
It is no wonder that the people of Judea, filled with admiration at these sublime
doctrines of equality, fraternity, liberty and tolerance, should exclaim, "Never
man spake like this man!"
Is it on those admirable principles that the Church of Rome is founded? No!
for she has, thousands of times, proclaimed that her mission was to destroy
them all, even if she had to wade in the blood of those who support them.
But just as the Romish Church is not only the very antipodes and the most implacable
enemy of those admirable doctrines and principles, so the constitution of the
United States is the ripe fruit of this divine seed, sown by the Son of God
Himself in the bosom of humanity, eighteen hundred years ago.
Yes, in reference to those principles of fraternity, equality, liberty, and
tolerance, the constitution of the United States is to the Gospel of Christ
what the fruit is to the tree which has given it. And this is the verdict given
by the whole world, the Church of Rome excepted.
Why is it that the poor, the bruised, the wounded, and the oppressed from every
land turn their eyes, their hearts, and their steps towards this country? It
is because all the echoes of heaven and earth have told them that the Untied
States Republic is, par excellence, the land of fraternity, fair play, equality,
and liberty.
The Pope of Rome and his Jesuits know this better than any one. Hence their
constant and supreme efforts to destroy this Republic. Believing and preaching
that it is their duty to exterminate the individuals who differ from them in
religion, they assume that it is their duty to destroy the governments and the
nations who refuse to submit to their yoke, when they can do it safely.
The mission of Rome being to teach that the inferior, the people, must obey
his superior, just as the corpse obeys the hand which moves it, or as the stick
obeys the arm which directs it, she knows well that she cannot fulfill her mission
and attain her object so long as this government of a free, sovereign people,
stands; she is, then, bound to oppose, paralyze, and destroy that government
when she finds her opportunity.
With lynx eye, she watched that opportunity: and with anxiety and rage she spied
from her cradle the onward march of this young giant Republic. She knew that
it was in the bosom of every true citizen of the United States to propagate
those accursed (by her) principles of equality, fraternity, and liberty all
over the world. She saw that the irresistible influence of those principles
were felt on the most distant nations, as well as on the poor, miserable Irish
people, she was keeping under her heavy and ignominious yoke; she understood
that there was a real danger for her very existence, if those principles would
continue to spread; that her slavery star would go down as the liberty star
would rise on the horizon. In a word, Rome saw at once that the very existence
of the United States was a formidable menace to her own life. Already she had
seen the chains of two millions of her Irish slaves melted at the simple touch
of the warm rays of liberty which had fallen from the stars and stripes banners.
From the very beginning she perfidiously sowed the germs of division and hatred
between the two great sections of this country, and she felt an unspeakable
joy when she saw that she had succeeded in dividing its South from the North,
on the burning question of slavery. She looked upon that division as her golden
opportunity. To crush one party by the other, and reign over the bloody ruins
of both, has invariably been her policy. She hoped that the hour of her supreme
triumph over this continent was come. She ordered her elder son, the Emperor
of France, to keep himself ready to help her to crush the North, by having an
army in Mexico ready to support the South, and she bade all the Roman Catholic
bishops, priests, and people to enroll themselves under the banners of slavery,
by joining themselves to the party of the Democracy. And everybody knows how
the Roman Catholic bishops and priests, almost to a man, obeyed that order.
Only one bishop dared to disobey. Above everything, it was ordered to oppose
the election of Lincoln at any cost. For, from the very first day that his eloquent
voice had been heard, a thrill of terror had gone through the hearts of the
partisans of slavery. The Democratic press, which was then, as it is still now,
almost entirely under the control of the Roman Catholics, and the devoted tool
of the Jesuits, deluged the country with the most fearful denunciations against
him. They called him an ape, a stupid brute, a most dangerous lunatic, a bloody
monster, a merciless tyrant, ect., ect. In a word, Rome exhausted all her resources
of language, she ransacked the English dictionary to find the most suitable
expressions to fill the people with contempt, hatred, and horror against him.
But it was written in the decrees of God that honest Abraham Lincoln should
be proclaimed President of the United States, the 4th of March 1861.
At the end of August, having known from a Roman Catholic priest, whom, by the
mercy of God, I had persuaded to leave the errors of Popery, that there was
a plot among them to assassinate the President, I thought it was my duty to
go and tell him what I knew, at the same time giving him a new assurance of
gratitude for what he had done for me.
Knowing that I was among those who were waiting in the ante-chamber, he sent
immediately for me, and received me with greater cordiality and marks of kindness
than I could expect.
"I am so glad to meet you again," he said: "you see that your
friends, the Jesuits, have not yet killed me. But they would have surely done
it when I passed through their most devoted city, Baltimore, had I not defeated
their plans, by passing incognito a few hours before they expected me. We have
the proof that the company which has been selected and organized to murder me
was led by a rabid Roman Catholic, called Byrne; it was almost entirely composed
of Roman Catholics; more than that, there were two disguised priests among them,
to lead and encourage them. I am sorry to have so little time to see you: but
I will not let you go before telling you that, a few days ago, I saw Mr. Morse,
the learned inventor of electric telegraphy: he told me that when he was in
Rome, not long ago, he found out the proofs of a most formidable conspiracy
against this country and all its institutions. It is evident that it is to the
intrigues and emissaries of the Pope that we owe, in great part, the horrible
evil war which is threatening to cover the country with blood and ruins.
"I am sorry that Professor Morse had to leave Rome before he could know
more about the secret plans of the Jesuits against the liberties and the very
existence of this country. But do you know that I want you to take his place
and continue that investigation? My plan is to attach you to my ambassador of
France, as one of the secretaries. In that honourable position you would go
from Paris to Rome, where you might find, through the directions of Mr. Morse,
an opportunity of re-uniting the broken threads of his researches. 'It takes
a Greek to fight a Greek.' As you have been twenty-five years a priest of Rome,
I do not know any man in the United States so well acquainted as you are with
the tricks of the Jesuits, and on the devotedness of whom I could better rely.
And when, once on the staff of my ambassador, even as one of the secretaries,
might you not soon yourself become the ambassador? I am in need of Christian
men in every department of the public service, but more in those high positions.
What do you think of that?"
"My dear President," I answered, "I feel overwhelmed by your
kindness. Surely nothing could be more pleasant to me than to grant our request.
The honour you want to confer upon me is much above my merit: but my conscience
tells me that I cannot give up the preaching of the Gospel to my poor French
Canadian countrymen, who are still in the errors of Popery. For I am about the
only one who, by the Providence of God, has any real influence over them. I
am, surely, the only one the bishops and priests seem to fear in that work.
The many attempts they have made to take away my life are a proof of it. Besides
that, though I consider the present President of the Unites States much above
the Emperors of France, Russia, and Austria, much above the greatest kings of
the world, I feel that I am the servant, the ambassador of One who is as much
above even the good and great President of the United States as the heavens
are above the earth. I appeal to your own Christian and honourable feelings
to know if I can forsake the one for the other."
The President became very solemn, and replied: "You are right! you are
right! There is nothing so great under heaven as to be the ambassador of Christ."
But then, coming back to himself, with one of his fine jokes, which he had always
ready, he added: "Yes! yes! You are the ambassador of a greater Prince
than I am: but He does not pay you with so good cash as I would do." He
then added: "I am exceedingly pleased to see you. However, I am so pressed
just now, by most important affairs, that you must excuse me if I ask you to
give your place to one of my generals who is there, waiting for me. Please come
again to-morrow at ten o'clock; I have a very important question to ask you
on a matter which has been constantly before my mind these last few weeks."
The next day I was, at the appointed hour, with my noble friend, who said: "I
could not give you more than ten minutes yesterday, but I will give you twenty
today. I want your views about a thing which is exceedingly puzzling to me,
and you are the only one to whom I like to speak on that subject. A great number
of Democratic papers have been sent to me lately, evidently written by Roman
Catholics, publishing that I was born a Roman Catholic, and baptized by a priest.
They call me a renegade, an apostate, on account of that; and they heap upon
my head mountains of abuses. At first I laughed at that, for it is a lie. Thanks
be to God, I have never been a Roman Catholic. No priest of Rome has ever laid
his hand on my head. But the persistency of the Romish press to present this
falsehood to their readers as a gospel truth, must have a meaning. Please tell
me, as briefly as possible, what you think about that."
"My dear President," I answered, "it was just this strange story
published about you, which brought me here yesterday. I wanted to say a word
about it; but you were too busy. Let me tell you that I wept as a child when
I read that story for the first time. For, not only my impression is that it
is your sentence of death; but I have from the lips of a converted priest, that
it is in order to excite the fanaticism of the Roman Catholic murderers, whom
they hope to find sooner or later, to strike you down; they have invented that
false story of your being born in the Church of Rome, and of your being baptized
by a priest. They want, by that, to brand your face with the ignominious mark
of apostasy. Do not forget that, in the Church of Rome, an apostate is an outcast,
who has no place in society, and who has no right to live.
"The Jesuits want the Roman Catholics to believe that you are a monster,
an open enemy of God and of His Church, that you are an excommunicated man.
For every apostate is, ipso facto (by that very fact) excommunicated. I have
brought to you the theology of one of the most learned and approved of the Jesuits
of his time, Busembaum, who, with many others, say that the man who will kill
you will do a good and holy work. More than that, here is a copy of a decree
of Gregory VII., proclaiming that the killing of an apostate, or an heretic
and an excommunicated man, as you are declared to be, is not murder; nay, that
it is a good, a Christian action. That decree is incorporated in the canon law,
which every priest must study, and which every good Catholic must follow.
"My dear President, I must repeat to you here what I said when at Urbana
in 1856. My fear is that you will fall under the blows of a Jesuit assassin
if you do not pay more attention than you have done, till now, to protect yourself.
Remember that because Coligny was an heretic, as you are, he was brutally murdered
in the St. Bartholomew night; that Henry IV. was stabbed by the Jesuit assassin,
Revaillac, the 14th of May, 1610, for having given liberty of conscience to
his people; and that William the Taciturn was shot dead by another Jesuit murderer,
called Girard, for having broken the yoke of the Pope. The Church of Rome is
absolutely the same today as she was then; she does believe and teach today,
as then, that she has the right and that it is her duty to punish by death any
heretic who is in her way as an obstacle to her designs. The unanimity with
which the Catholic hierarchy of the United States is on the side of the rebels
is an incontrovertible evidence that Rome wants to destroy this republic, and
as you are, by your personal virtues, your popularity, your love for liberty,
your position, the greatest obstacle to the diabolical schemes, their hatred
is concentrated upon you; you are the daily object of their maledictions; it
is at your breast they will direct their blows. My blood chills in my veins
when I contemplate the day which may come, sooner or later, when Rome will add
to all her other iniquities the murder of Abraham Lincoln."
When saying these things to the President, I was exceedingly moved, my voice
was as choked, and I could hardly retain my tears. But the President was perfectly
calm. When I had finished speaking, he took the volume of Busembaum from my
hand, read the lines which I had marked with red ink, and I helped him to translate
them into English. He then gave me back the book, and said:
"I will repeat to you what I said at Urbana, when for the first time you
told me your fears lest I would be assassinated by the Jesuits: 'Man must not
care where and when he will die, provided he dies at the post of honour and
duty.' But I may add, today, that I have a presentiment that God will call me
to Him through the hand of an assassin. Let His will, and, not mine be done!"
He then looked at his watch and said, "I am sorry, that the twenty minutes
I had consecrated to our interview have almost passed away; I will be for ever
grateful for the warning words you have addressed to me about the dangers ahead
of my life, from Rome. I know that they are not imaginary dangers. If I were
fighting against a Protestant South, as a nation, there would be no danger of
assassination. The nations who read the Bible, fight bravely on the battle-fields,
but they do not assassinate their enemies. The Pope and the Jesuits, with their
infernal Inquisition, are the only organized powers in the world which have
recourse to the dagger of the assassin to murder those whom they cannot convince
with their arguments or conquer with the sword.
"Unfortunately, I feel more and more, every day, that it is not against
the Americans of the South, alone, I am fighting, it is more against the Pope
of Rome, his perfidious Jesuits and their blind and blood-thirsty slaves, than
against the real American Protestants, that we have to defend ourselves. Here
is the real danger of our position. So long as they will hope to conquer the
North, they will spare me; but the day we will rout their armies (and that day
will surely come, with the help of God), take their cities, and force them to
submit, then, it is my impression that the Jesuits, who are the principal rulers
of the South, will do what they have almost invariably done in the past. The
dagger, or the pistol of one of their adepts, will do what the strong hands
of the warriors could not achieve. This civil war seems to be nothing but a
political affair to those who do not see, as I do, the secret springs of that
terrible drama. But it is more a religious than a civil war. It is Rome who
wants to rule and degrade the North, as she has ruled and degraded the South,
from the very day of its discovery. There are only very few of the Southern
leaders who are not more or less under the influence of the Jesuits, through
their wives, family relations, and their friends. Several members of the family
of Jeff Davis belong to the Church of Rome. Even the Protestant ministers are
under the influence of the Jesuits without suspecting it. To keep her ascendancy
in the North, as she does in the South, Rome is doing here what she has done
in Mexico, and in all the South American Republics; she is paralyzing, by a
civil war, the arms of the soldiers of Liberty. She divides our nation, in order
to weaken, subdue and rule it.
"Surely we have some brave and reliable Roman Catholic officers and soldiers
in our armies, but they form an insignificant minority when compared with the
Roman Catholic traitors against whom we have to guard ourselves, day and night.
The fact is, that the immense majority of Roman Catholic bishops, priests and
laymen, are rebels in heart, when they cannot be in fact; with very few exceptions,
they are publicly in favour of slavery. I understand, now, why the patriots
of France, who determined to see the colours of Liberty floating over their
great and beautiful country, were forced to hand or shoot almost all the priests
and the monks as the irreconcilable enemies of Liberty. For it is a fact, which
is now evident to me, that, with very few exceptions, every priest and every
true Roman Catholic is a determined enemy of Liberty. Their extermination in
France, was one of those terrible necessities which no human wisdom could avoid;
it looks to me now as an order from heaven to save France. May God grant that
the same terrible necessity be never felt in the United States! But there is
a thing which is very certain; it is, that if the American people could learn
what I know of the fierce hatred of the generality of the priests of Rome against
our institutions, our schools, our most sacred rights, and our so dearly bought
liberties, they would drive them away, to-morrow, from among us, or they would
shoot them as traitors. But I keep those sad secrets in my heart; you are the
only one to whom I reveal them, for I know that you learned them before me.
The history of these last thousand years tells us that wherever the Church of
Rome is not a dagger to pierce the bosom of a free nation, she is a stone to
her neck, and a ball to her feet, to paralyze her, and prevent her advance in
the ways of civilization, science, intelligence, happiness and liberty. But
I forget that my twenty minutes are gone long ago.
"Please accept my sincere thanks for the new lights you have given me on
the dangers of my position, and come again. I will always see you with a new
pleasure."
My second visit to Abraham Lincoln was at the beginning of June, 1862. The grand
victory of the "Monitor" over the "Merrimac," and the conquest
of New Orleans, by the brave and Christian Farragut had filled every heart with
joy; I wanted to unite my feeble voice to that of the whole country to tell
him how I blessed God for that glorious success. But I found him so busy that
I could only shake hands with him.
The third and last time I went to pay my respects to the doomed President, and
warn him against the impending dangers which I knew were threatening him, was
on the morning of June 8th, 1864, when he was absolutely besieged by people
who wanted to see him. After a kind and warm shaking of hands, he said:
"I am much pleased to see you again. But it is impossible, today, to say
anything more than this: To-morrow afternoon, I will receive the delegation
of the deputies of all the loyal states, sent to officially announce the desire
of the country that I should remain the President four years more. I invite
you to be present with them at that interesting meeting. You will see some of
the most prominent men of our Republic, and I will be glad to introduce you
to them. You will not present yourself as a delegate of the people, but only
as the guest of the President; and that there may be no trouble, I will give
you this card, with a permit to enter with the delegation. But do not leave
Washington before I see you again; I have some important matters on which I
want to know your mind."
The next day, it was my privilege to have the greatest honour ever received
by me. The good President wanted me to stand at his right hand, when he received
the delegation, and hear the address presented by Governor Dennison, the President
of the Convention, to which he replied in his own admirable simplicity and eloquence;
finishing by one of his most witty anecdotes. "I am reminded in this convention
of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion, wisely, 'That
it was not best to swap horses when crossing a stream.'"
The next day, he kindly took me with him in his carriage, when visiting the
thirty thousand wounded soldiers picked up on the battle-fields of the seven
days' battle of the Wilderness, and the thirty days' battle around Richmond,
where Grant was just breaking the backbone of the rebellion. On the way to and
from the hospitals, I could not talk much. The noise of the carriage rapidly
drawn on the pavement was too great. Besides that, my soul was so much distressed,
and my heart so much broken by the sight of the horrors of that fratricidal
war, that my voice was as stifled. The only thought which seemed to occupy the
mind of the President was the part which Rome had in that horrible struggle.
Many times he repeated:
"This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence
of the Jesuits. We owe it to Popery that we now see our land reddened with the
blood of her noblest sons. Though there were great differences of opinion between
the South and the North, on the question of slavery, neither Jeff Davis nor
any one of the leading men of the Confederacy would have dared to attack the
North, had they not relied on the promises of the Jesuits, that under the mask
of Democracy, the money and the arms of the Roman Catholic, even the arms of
France, were at their disposal, if they would attack us. I pity the priests,
the bishops and the monks of Rome in the United States, when the people realize
that they are, in great part, responsible for the tears and the blood shed in
this war; the later the more terrible will the retribution be. I conceal what
I know, on that subject, from the knowledge of the nation; for if the people
knew the whole truth, this war would turn into a religious war, and it would,
at once, take a tenfold more savage and bloody character, it would become merciless
as all religious wars are. It would become a war of extermination on both sides.
The Protestants of both the North and the South would surely unite to exterminate
the priests and the Jesuits, if they could hear what Professor Morse has said
to me of the plots made in the very city of Rome to destroy this Republic, and
if they could learn how the priests, the nuns, and the monks, which daily land
on our shores, under the pretext of preaching their religion, instructing the
people in their schools, taking care of the sick in the hospitals, are nothing
else but the emissaries of the Pope, of Napoleon, and the other despots of Europe,
to undermine our institutions, alienate the hearts of our people from our constitution,
and our laws, destroy our schools, and prepare a reign of anarchy here as they
have done in Ireland, in Mexico, in Spain, and wherever there are any people
who want to be free, ect."
When the President was speaking thus, we arrived at the door of his mansion.
He invited me to go with him to his study, and said:
"Thought I am very busy, I must rest an hour with you. I am in need of
that rest. My head is aching, I feel as crushed under the burden on affairs
which are on my shoulders. There are many important things about the plots of
the Jesuits that I can learn only from you. Please wait just a moment, I have
just received some dispatches from General Grant, to which I must give an answer.
My secretary is waiting for me. I go to him. Please amuse yourself with those
books, during my short absence."
Twenty-five minutes later, the President had returned, with his face flushed
with joy. "Glorious news! General Grant has again beaten Lee, and forced
him to retreat towards Richmond, when he will have to surrender before long.
Grant is a real hero. But let us come to the question I want to put to you.
Have you read the letter of the Pope to Jeff Davis, and what do you think of
it?"
"My dear President," I answered, "it is just that letter which
brought me to your presence again, the day before yesterday. I wanted to come
and see you, from the very day I read it. But I knew you were so overwhelmed
with the affairs of your government, that I would not be able to see you. However,
the anxieties of my mind were so, that I determined to go over every barrier
to warn you again against the new dangers and plots which I knew would come
out from that perfidious letter, against your life.
"That letter is a poisoned arrow thrown by the Pope, at you personally;
and it will be more than a miracle if it be not your irrevocable warrant of
death. Before reading it, it is true that every Catholic could see by the unanimity
of the bishops siding with the rebel cause, that their church as a whole, was
against this free Republican government. However, a good number of liberty-loving
Irish, German and French Catholics, following more the instincts of their noble
nature, than the degrading principles of their church, enrolled themselves under
the banners of Liberty, and they have fought like heroes. To detach these men
from the rank and file of the Northern armies, and force them to help the cause
of the rebellion, because the object of the intrigues of the Jesuits. Secret
and pressing letters were addressed from Rome to the bishops, ordering them
to weaken your armies by detaching those men from you. The bishops answered,
that they could not do that without exposing themselves to be shot. But they
advised the Pope to acknowledge, at once, the legitimacy of the Southern Republic,
and to take Jeff Davis under his supreme protection, by a letter, which would
be read everywhere.
"That letter, then, tells logically the Roman Catholics that you are a
blood-thirsty tyrant! a most execrable being when fighting against a government
which the infallible and holy Pope of Rome recognizes as legitimate. The Pope,
by this letter, tells his blind slaves that you are an infamous usurper, when
considering yourself the President of the Southern States; that you are outraging
the God of heaven and earth, by continuing such a sanguinary war to subdue a
nation over whom God Almighty has declared, through His infallible pontiff,
the Pope, that you have not the least right: that letter means that you will
give an account to God and man for the blood and tears you cause to flow in
order to satisfy your ambition.
"By this letter of the Pope to Jeff Davis you are not only an apostate,
as you were thought before, whom every man had the right to kill, according
to the canonical laws of Rome; but you are more vile, criminal and cruel than
the horse thief, the public banditti, and the lawless brigand, robber and murderer,
whom it is a duty to stop and kill, when we take them in their acts of blood,
and that there is no other way to put an end to their plunders and murders.
"And, my dear President, the meaning I give you of this perfidious letter
of the Pope to Jeff Davis, is not a fancy imagination on my part, it is the
unanimous explanation given me by a great number of the priests of Rome, with
whom I have had occasion to speak on that subject. In the name of God, and in
the name of our dear country, which is in so much need of your services, I conjure
you to pay more attention to protect your precious life, and not continue to
expose it as you have done till now."
The President listened to my words with breathless attention. He replied;
"You confirm me in the views I had taken of the letter of the Pope. Professor
Morse is of the same mind with you. It is, indeed, the most perfidious act which
could occur under present circumstances. You are perfectly correct when you
say that it was to detach the Roman Catholics who had enrolled themselves in
our armies. Since the publication of that letter, a great number of them have
deserted their banners and turned traitors; very few, comparatively, have remained
true to their oath of fidelity. It is, however, very lucky that one of those
few, Sheridan, is worth a whole army by his ability, his patriotism and his
heroic courage. It is true, also, that Meade has remained with us, and gained
the bloody battle of Gettysburg. But how could he lose it, when he was surrounded
by such heroes as Howard, Reynolds, Buford, Wadsworth, Cutler, Slocum, Sickes,
Hancock, Barnes, ect. But it is evident that his Romanism superseded his patriotism
after the battle. He let the army of Lee escape, when it was so easy to cut
his retreat and force him to surrender, after having lost nearly the half of
his soldiers in the last three days' carnage.
"When Meade was to order the pursuit, after the battle, a stranger came,
in haste, to the headquarters, and that stranger was a disguised Jesuit. After
a ten minutes' conversation with him, Meade made such arrangements for the pursuit
of the enemy, that he escaped almost untouched, with the loss of only two guns!
"You re right," continued the President, "when you say that this
letter of the Pope has entirely changed the nature and the ground of the war.
Before they read it, the Roman Catholics could see that I was fighting against
Jeff Davis and his Southern Confederacy. But now, they must believe that it
is against Christ and His holy vicar, the Pope, that I am raising my sacrilegious
hands; we have the daily proofs that their indignation, their hatred, their
malice, against me, are a hundredfold intensified. New projects of assassination
are detected almost every day, accompanied with such savage circumstances, that
they bring to my memory the massacre of the St. Bartholomew and the Gunpowder
Plot. We feel, at their investigation, that they come from the same masters
in the art of murder, the Jesuits.
"The New York riots were evidently a Romish plot from beginning to end.
We have the proofs in hand that they were the work of Bishop Hughes and his
emissaries. No doubt can remain in the minds of the most incredulous about the
bloody attempts of Rome to destroy New York, when we know the easy way it was
stopped. I wrote to Bishop Hughes, telling him that the whole country would
hold him responsible for it if he would not stop it at once. He then gathered
the rioters around his palace, called them his 'dear friends,' invited them
to go back home peacefully, and all was finished! so Jupiter of old used to
raise a storm and stop it with a nod of his head!
"From the beginning of our civil war, there has been, not a secret, but
a public alliance, between the Pope of Rome and Jeff Davis, and that alliance
has followed the common laws of this world affairs. The greater has led the
smaller, the stronger has guided the weaker. The Pope and his Jesuits have advised,
supported, and directed Jeff Davis on the land, from the first gun shot at Fort
Sumter, by the rabid Roman Catholic Beauregard. They are helping him on the
sea by guiding and supporting the other rabid Roman Catholic pirate, Semmes,
on the ocean. And they will help the rebellion when firing their last gun to
shed the blood of the last soldier of Liberty, who will fall in this fratricidal
war. In my interview with Bishop Hughes, I told him, 'that every stranger who
had sworn allegiance to our government by becoming a United States citizen,
as himself, was liable to be shot or hung as a perjured traitor and an armed
spy, as the sentence of the court-martial may direct. And he will be so shot
and hanged accordingly, as there will be no exchange of such prisoners'. After
I had put this flea in the ears of the Romish bishop, I requested him to go
and report my words to the Pope. Seeing the dangerous position of his bishops
and priests when siding with the rebels, my hope was that he would advise them,
for their own interests, to become loyal and true to their allegiance and help
us through the remaining part of the war. But he result has been the very contrary.
The Pope has thrown away the mask, and shown himself the public partisan and
the protector of the rebellion, by taking Jeff Davis by the hand, and impudently
recognizing the Southern States as a legitimate government. Now, I have the
proof in hand that that very Bishop Hughes, whom I had sent to Rome that he
might induce the Pope to urge the Roman Catholics of the North at least, to
be true to their oath of allegiance, and whom I thanked publicly, when, under
the impression that he had acted honestly, according to the promise he had given
me, is the very man who advised the Pope to recognize the legitimacy of the
Southern Republic, and put the whole weight of his tiara in the balance against
us in favour of our enemies! Such is the perfidy of those Jesuits. Two cankers
are biting the very entrails of the United States today: the Romish and the
Mormon priests. Both are equally at work to form a people of the most abject,
ignorant and fanatical slaves, who will recognize no other authority but their
supreme pontiffs. Both are aiming at the destruction of our schools, to raise
themselves upon our ruins. Both shelter themselves under our grand and holy
principles of liberty of conscience, to destroy that very liberty of conscience,
and bind the world before their heavy and ignominious yoke. The Mormon and the
Jesuit priests are equally the uncompromising enemies of our constitution and
our laws; but the more dangerous of the two is the Jesuits the Romish priest,
for he knows better now to conceal his hatred under the mask of friendship and
public good: he is better trained to commit the most cruel and diabolical deeds
for the glory of God. "Till lately, I was in favour of the unlimited liberty
of conscience as our constitution gives it to the Roman Catholics. But now,
it seems to me that, sooner or later, the people will be forced to put a restriction
to that clause towards the Papists. Is it not an act of folly to give absolute
liberty of conscience to a set of men who are publicly sworn to cut our throats
the very day they have their opportunity for doing it? It is right to give the
privilege of citizenship to men who are the sworn and public enemies of our
constitution, our laws, our liberties, and our lives?
"The very moment that Popery assumed the right of life and death on a citizen
of France, Spain, Germany, England, or the United States, it assumed to be the
power, the government of France, Spain, England, Germany, and the United States.
Those States then committed a suicidal act by allowing Popery to put a foot
on their territory with the privilege of citizenship. The power of life and
death is the supreme power, and two supreme powers cannot exist on the same
territory without anarchy, riots, bloodshed, and civil wars without end. When
Popery will give up the power of life and death which it proclaims on its own
divine power, in all its theological books and canon laws, then, and then alone,
it can be tolerated and can receive the privileges of citizenship in a free
country.
"Is it not an absurdity to give to a man a thing which he is sworn to hate,
curse, and destroy? And does not the Church of Rome hate, curse, and destroy
liberty of conscience whenever she can do it safely? I am for liberty of conscience
in its noblest, broadest, highest sense. But I cannot give liberty of conscience
to the Pope and to his followers, the Papists, so long as they tell me, through
all their councils, theologians, and canon laws, that their conscience orders
them to burn my wife, strangle my children, and cut my throat when they find
their opportunity! This does not seem to be understood by the people today.
But sooner or later, the light of common sense will make it clear to every one
that no liberty of conscience can be granted to men who are sworn to obey a
Pope, who pretends to have the right to put to death those who differ from him
religion.
"You are not the first to warn me against the dangers of assassination.
My ambassadors in Italy, France, and England, as well as Professor Morse, have
many times warned me against the plots of the murderers which they have detected
in those different countries. But I see no other safeguard against those murderers
but to be always ready to die, as Christ advises it. As we must all die sooner
or later, it makes very little difference to me whether I die from a dagger
plunged through the heart or from an inflammation of the lungs. Let me tell
you that I have lately read a passage in the Old Testament which has made a
profound, and, I hope, a salutary impression on me. Here is that passage."
The President took his Bible, opened it at the third chapter of Deuteronomy,
and read from the 22nd to the 28th verse:-
"Ye shall not fear them: for the Lord your God He shall fight for you.
And I besought the Lord at that time, saying, O Lord God, Thou hast begun to
shew Thy servant Thy greatness and Thy mighty hand; for what God is there, in
heaven or in earth, that can do according to Thy works, and according to Thy
might! I pray Thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan,
that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. But the Lord was wroth with me for your sakes,
and would not hear me: and the Lord said unto me, Let it suffice thee: speak
no more unto Me of this matter. Get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift
up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold
it with thine eyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan."
After the President had read these words with great solemnity, he added: "My
dear Father Chiniquy, let me tell you that I have read these strange and beautiful
verses several times these last five or six weeks. The more I read them, the
more it seems to me that God has written them for me as well as for Moses. Has
He not taken me from my poor log cabin by the hand, as He did of Moses in the
reeds of the Nile, to put me at the head of the greatest and the most blessed
of modern nations, just as He put that prophet at the head of the most blessed
nation of ancient times? Has not God granted me a privilege which was not granted
to any living man, when I broke the fetters of 4,000,000 of men and made them
free? Has not our God given me the most glorious victories over our enemies?
Are not the armies of the Confederacy so reduced to a handful of men when compared
to what they were two years ago, that the day is fast approaching when they
will have to surrender?
"Now, I see the end of this terrible conflict, with the same joy of Moses,
when, at the end of his trying forty years in the wilderness; and I pray my
God to grant me to see the days of peace, and untold prosperity, which will
follow this cruel war, as Moses asked God to see the other side of Jordan and
enter the Promised Land. But do you know that I hear in my soul, as the voice
of God, giving me the rebuke which was given to Moses?
"Yes! every time that my soul goes to God to ask the favour of seeing the
other side of Jordan, and eating the fruits of that peace, after which I am
longing with such an unspeakable desire, do you know that there is a still,
but solemn voice, which tells me that I will see those things, only from a long
distance, and that I will be among the dead, when the nation which God granted
me to lead through those awful trials, will cross the Jordan, and dwell in that
Land of Promise, where peace, industry, happiness, and liberty, will make every
one happy; and why so? Because He has already given me favours which He never
gave, I dare say, to any man, in these latter days.
"Why did God Almighty refuse to Moses the favour of crossing the Jordan,
and entering the Promised Land? It was on account of his own nations's sins!
That law of divine retribution and justice, by which one must suffer for another,
is surely a terrible mystery. But it is a fact which no man who has any intelligence
and knowledge can deny. Moses, who knew that law, though he probably did not
understand it better than we do, calmly says to his people, 'God was wroth with
me for your sakes.'
"But though we do not understand that mysterious and terrible law, we find
it written in letters of tears and blood wherever we go. We do not read a single
page of history, without finding undeniable traces of its existence.
"Where is the mother who has not shed tears and suffered real tortures,
for her children's sake?
"Who is the good king, the worthy emperor, the gifted chieftain, who have
not suffered unspeakable mental agonies, or even death, for their people's sake?
"Is not our Christian religion the highest expression of the wisdom, mercy,
and love of God! But what is Christianity if not the very incarnation of that
eternal law of divine justice in our humanity?
"When I look on Moses, alone, silently dying on the Mount Pisgah, I see
that law, in one of its most sublime human manifestations, and I am filled with
admiration and awe.
"But when I consider that law of justice, and expiation in the death of
the Just, the divine Son of Mary, on the mountain of Calvary, I remain mute
in my adoration. The spectacle of that crucified one which is before my eyes,
is more than sublime, it is divine! Moses died for his people's sake, but Christ
died for the whole world's sake! Both died to fulfill the same eternal law of
the divine justice, though in a different measure.
"Now would it not be the greatest of honours and privileges bestowed upon
me, if God, in His infinite love, mercy and wisdom, would put me between His
faithful servant, Moses, and His eternal Son, Jesus, that I might die as they
did, for my nation's sake!
"My God alone knows what I have already suffered for my dear country's
sake. But my fear is that the justice of God is not yet paid. When I look upon
the rivers of tears and blood drawn by the lashes of the merciless masters from
the veins of the very heart of those millions of defenseless slaves, these two
hundred years. When I remember the agonies, the cries, the unspeakable tortures
of those unfortunate people, at which I have, to some extent, connived with
so many others, a part of my life, I feel that we are still far from the complete
expiation. For the judgments of God are true and righteous.
"It seems to me that the Lord wants, today, as He wanted in the days of
Moses, another victim a victim which he has himself chosen, anointed and prepared
for the sacrifice, by raising it above the rest of His people. I cannot conceal
from you that my impression is that I am that victim. So many plots have already
been made against my life, that it is a real miracle that they have all failed,
when we consider that the great majority of them were in the hands of skillful
Roman Catholic murderers, evidently trained by Jesuits. But can we expect that
God will make a perpetual miracle to save my life? I believe not. The Jesuits
are so expert in those deeds of blood, that Henry IV. said that it was impossible
to escape them, and he became their victim, though he did all that could be
done to protect himself. My escape from their hands, since the letter of the
Pope to Jeff Davis has sharpened a million of daggers to pierce my breast, would
be more than a miracle.
"But just as the Lord heard no murmur from the lips of Moses when He told
him that he had to die, before crossing the Jordan, for the sins of his people;
so I hope and pray that He will hear no murmur from me when I fall for my nations's
sake.
"The only two favours I ask of the Lord are, first, that I may die for
the sacred cause in which I am engaged, and when I am the standard bearer of
the rights and liberties of my country.
"The second favour I ask of God is, that my dear son, Robert, when I am
gone, will be one of those who lift us that flag of Liberty which will cover
my tomb, and carry it with honour and fidelity, to the end of his life, as his
father did, surrounded by the millions who will be called with him to fight
and die for the defense and honour of our country."
Never had I heard such sublime words: Never had I seen a human face so solemn
and so prophet-like as the face of the President, when uttering these things.
Every sentence had come to me as a hymn from heaven, reverberated by the echoes
of the mountains of Pisgah and Calvary. I was beside myself. Bathed in tears,
I tried to say something, but I could not utter a word.
I knew the hour to leave had come, I asked from the President permission to
fall on my knees, and pray with him that his life might be spared: and he knelt
with me. But I prayed more with my tears and sobs, than with my words.
Then I pressed his hand on my lips and bathed it with my tears, and with a heart
filled with an unspeakable desolation, I bade him Adieu! It was for the last
time!
For the hour was fast approaching when he was to fall by the hands of a Jesuit
assassin, for his nation's sake.