/'5 8-f5'/ 
 
 2112 
 
 /^iLeA/, :X^' 
 
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THE RELIGION of the POPE 
 
 —AND- 
 
 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 A CONTRAST. 
 
 When I began this little tractate, it was intended to be simply a panegyric 
 on a brave and earnest man, whose act I was unwilling should be forgotten, 
 and the metre of the first two lines, which was quite fortuitous, determined 
 its continuance on a wider field. 
 
 Nor is the employment of verse in a matter like this without PRECEDENT, 
 for, in the early and deadly struggle of Christianity with Paganism, Christ- 
 ians at times had recourse to the employment of verse. And Popery is SUCH 
 A FEARFUL DELUSION AND SO DANGEROUS TO LIBERTY, that no effort, 
 , in any direction, to get rid of it ought to be contemned. 
 
 • rc^a ttcoording to Act of the Parlia«i©iit ot O^nat^a in t%# 
 ; cue fhotzsacd eight hundUr^rf luid ninety onp. by 'J. '^ 
 
 •5n5^ls.Qrjttarto. Ua^.e omoeolthe Mui..stnrr.t A«ru->-'"*^^*^ 
 
WHAT IS ORANGE ISA1 ? 
 
 >..-f-^ 
 
 Orangeism is an organization binding its members to uphold as their 
 solemn duty the liberties, religious and civil, of every man, and consequently 
 the foe of every system which imperils or impugns our just and inalienable 
 liberties. True, Orangemen are not all wise and good, but neither are the 
 members of our churches or of our parliaments, but they are brave, earnest, 
 warm-hearted men, and, 1 think I may aver, more alive to the great under- 
 lying principles of human freedom than Protestants in general, and more 
 wisely impressed with .l.e necessity of being ever^on their guard against the 
 open or subtle machinations of a hierarchical system from which mankind 
 have already suffered so fearfully, and from whose principles always avowed 
 — "semper et ubique eadem" — the peace of the world is endangered. Orange- 
 men are in fact the very vanguard of that lofty Protestantism which recog- 
 nizes in every true man one entitled to those equal rights which he challenges 
 for himself. He may not be all that we could wish. He may be seduced, he 
 may be misled, he may be tempted by self interest, but in his heart of hearts he 
 feels the pulse-throb of the love of liberty, and is her devoted servant. Equal 
 Rights, indeed ! Is not he the true upholder of them — the genuine stock of 
 Equal Righters? Only read that "constitution" which embodies his senti- 
 ments, and be informed. 
 
 I had some time since been so deeply moved by an account given in one 
 of the New York papers ("The Sun," quoted below,) of the unflinchfng 
 bravery of one very poor but high-hearted Orangemen amid the jeers and 
 curses and missiles of an infuriated New York mob, that I commenced pen- 
 ning at the time the following rhymed lines to commemorate his great action 
 and to point out the perni' ous principles of a system which led to such results. 
 
 On the demise of Johnson, the Editor wrote : 
 
 " The central and conspicuous figure in the Orange parade was a man in 
 
 full regalia mounted on a large gray horse. When the procession 
 
 moved through the streets that were lined with Orange-haters, the horse- 
 man's conspicuous position made him the target for opprobrious epithets and, 
 later, for more substantial missiles. Before the march was over stones and 
 brickbats and pistol shots became plentiful ; but the man on the gray horse 
 never wavered, though those about him were in momentary expectation of 
 seeing him struck down. Later still, when the disorder culminated in a riot, 
 and the militia fired several death-dealing volleys, the Orange-bedecked 
 horseman sat firm on his saddle, showing a courage that won the admiration 
 of friend and foe alike." His name was John Johnson ! ! ! Now, Orange- 
 men, as I apprehend it, are simply PROTESTANTS, but Protestants who are 
 bound to one another by a solemn obligation to maintain constitutional liberty 
 against that ecclesiastical system which is pledged, when it has the power, to 
 crush it out. Rome bids, but Christ forbids, to pull up the tares. But I do 
 not wish to be regarded as speaking from my own individuality, but only as a 
 self-constituted representative of common Protestantism. 
 
/ 
 
 Claims His Citizen's Right. 
 
 He sat on his steed at the head of his band, 
 
 A few dauntless t>ouls, in that Protestant ? land, 
 
 StroDg'hearted, uuquailing, in orange and blue, 
 
 A target for hate to that ignorant crew, 
 
 Who flung curses and bricks and whatever lay near, 
 
 While, calm as a Sphinx, he, a stranger to fear, 
 
 Not to right nor to left, looking death in the face, 
 
 Declined by an inch, as with slow, measured pace, 
 
 As though on parade at the head of the troop 
 
 He guided his charger, nor heard the fierce whoop 
 
 Of those frenzied, uncivilized men, who knew not 
 
 The first meaning of freedom ; but, wholly mistaught 
 
 By the teachers they trust, and, not knowing Christ's word, 
 
 Flew direct in the teeth of the law of their Lord. 
 
 '* Let the tares and the wheat in the field side by 3ide 
 
 Till the harvest grow up," when the Lord will decide 
 
 Which are tares and which wheat. This is Christ's own} command. 
 
 Then, hurl not the bolt thou, with impious hand, 
 
 *' Because vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, to repay'* — 
 
 But not thine, poor blind worm— in the great judgment day. 
 
 But let none be too harsh in his judgment of those, 
 
 Who through training and ignorance fiercely oppose, 
 
 For what their entanglements, God only knows. 
 
 But, oh, " Pull not the tares up," in mad self-conceit, 
 
 ** Lest, in plucking the tares up, you pluck up, too, the wheat.** 
 
 POL. 
 
 But his course here was foolish, provocative e'en. 
 
 PRO. 
 
 But do they not themselves, too, flash out in their green, 
 
 With their ribbons, and banners, and music and all. 
 
 And their " host " lifted high, while we go to the wall. 
 
 But then they're a privileged caste, and the pet 
 
 Of both sides' politicians, and from the Pope get 
 
 Plain sanction for this in the unerring decree. 
 
 Which enforces Rome's past; as of right, while she's free 
 
 In her outspoken '* syllabus " tongue to aver 
 
 That all churches and states must succumb* yet to her, 
 
 If not by persuasion , by force then and all 
 
 The devices which tyranny has at her call. 
 
/\ 
 
 For she may not let heresy, when she has power, 
 
 Spread her damnable doctrines, no not for an hour. 
 
 She must ♦♦ pluck up the tares " nor let their seed fall 
 
 To produce a fresh crop, but grub up one and all. 
 
 This she tells us naively, this our horsemen well knew. 
 
 And so to his riding affords us the clue 
 
 Why he faced that fierce storm, all unknowing his fate, 
 
 And yet rode on so calmly mid curses and hate, 
 
 A flesh and blood protest 'gainst all who would thrust 
 
 Down the throat of his victim the lie that he must 
 
 Galileo-like swallow, the best that he can. 
 
 Or refuse, braving all, and stand up like a man. 
 
 POL. 
 
 But this horueman was tricked out in orange and blue ! 
 
 PRO. 
 
 What of that, if he paid for his clothes as do you. 
 And clothes or no clothes was a true-souled man, too, 
 Who was pledged by a vow the most solemn to fight 
 With his keen trusty blade in defence of the right, 
 OJ the rights irrespective of caste or of creed ^ 
 Of the freedom of allj^ in the hour of their need. 
 To those tha*. " he's narrow, intolerant " cry 
 And so much besides, let me make this reply ; 
 Give a dog a bad name and who spoil for a fight, 
 The excuse hail with pleasure to kill him outright, 
 So our Orangeman too's misconceived and contemned, 
 As though he had ^luly been tried and condemned ; 
 But although it's not so, and so little i^o blame. 
 Like the poor friendless dog he has got an ill name. 
 "Yet his good " constitution " sustains him, in spite 
 Of this clatter of lies and he trusts that yet right 
 Will be done him, when men without prejudice come 
 To examine his case as between him and Rome ; 
 But should this be refused, he has muscle and bone. 
 Of mind as of body, to stand quite alone ; 
 
 But the Catholic thinks, yea some Protestants tovy, 
 lie but troubles the peace, is a nuisance althrough. 
 
 But let those who desire to see men as they are, 
 In the white light of truth, not regard them firom far, 
 \ But come close to their hearts and their charter peruse 
 
 What their feelings, their objects, their fears and their views, 
 Reaching over the whole field of life by the light, 
 Which each is possessed of, of near or fa^ sight. 
 And we scarce can like many who off-hand conclude, 
 With a sneer at the whole, as though they were endued 
 
With quintessence of wisdom — believe, in full view 
 Of all evidence contra, the charge is proved true. 
 
 POL. • 
 
 What nonsense ! The whole's but the cackle of fools, 
 Who ignore or despise all good common-sense rules. 
 
 PRO. 4 
 
 But against these vile rules we are war to the knife 
 Which by teaching to shun all occasions of strife, 
 Enable the vile to sail smoothly through life, 
 After them be the deluge, let these who come next. 
 In the currents of time, find their own proper text 
 To direct them in life, their own sails let them trim, 
 For all that they care we may sink or may swim. 
 
 Thus they argue, the creatures whose love for their kind, 
 Is the measure exact of their own little mind. 
 But away with such weak-kneed and worldly wise talk, 
 Unseduced, undeterred let the orangeman walk 
 In the plain path of duty and shun the whole brood 
 Of the tricksters of all sides who seldom have stood 
 Up for aught in the world but their own private good. 
 But all honor to those who stand foremost to fight, 
 In the battle of life for the good and the right. 
 For the free right of all men by speech or by ink * 
 In New York or in Rome to proclaim what they think, 
 And to dress or in orange, or scarlet, or black. 
 Without terror of violence, thumbscrew or rack, 
 Or to walk in their streets in the full face of day. 
 If no wrong they commit or obstruct not the way. 
 
 But brave Johnson is gone, his life's battle is o*er. 
 Still brave deeds die not so, though time knows him no more, 
 And though poorer is life than if millions untold 
 Were sunk in the sea of our much-clutched at gold, 
 When a true man has left us to enter his rest, . 
 Yet who's not enriched by his noble bequest 
 Of pur a ingots of gold of the manhood of man, 
 Willei that day to mankind, when he rode in the van. 
 Which no codicil after could ever revoke. 
 For a deed such as his roots itself, like the oak, 
 In the depths of the heart and is our's evermore, 
 Our's to draw from for a^pe and not lessen the store ; 
 For, unlike earthly wealth, we may draw as we will, 
 But draw as we may the whole store is there still. 
 Though myself an outsider, yet when I behold 
 Honest manhood at bottom I value the gold 
 E'en though mixed with the clay, the entail of our birth, 
 
And tarnished and soiled with the passions of earth, * 
 
 For the act of a man in the noon of the soul, 
 Struck straight from the heart is a holocaust whole. 
 And as such "totus, teres, rotundus" can never 
 Be cancelled, hut stands out one nohle endeavour 
 Of the soul in its prime, realizing that hour 
 In a moment supreme its attainable power, 
 And although after doings should draggle behind. 
 Yet such effort supreme tells the tale of what mind, 
 When wound up to its full can achieve ; so this act 
 Of brave daring and doing stands ever intact — 
 His and ours evermore, when humanity needs 
 A bright beacon and spur to achieve equal deeds. 
 
 Now, my critic may grant that our man was a *• brick," 
 But may deem that I've laid on the paint rather thick, 
 That our Orangeman knew not the half himself knows 
 Of philosophy, science — he means, I suppose — 
 And of life and of books and of manifold things. 
 And for soarings poetic had very clipped wings — 
 Just a commonish man scarcely one to attract 
 The notice of any, apart from this act. 
 But as yon lump of coal, so dull, cold and inert, 
 Is yet kin to the diamond, and hath in its heart 
 Whole stores of high energy, waiting the hour 
 When action demands the full play of its power. 
 So our man,. a black diamond, looked common enough, 
 I dare say in^a crowd, yet had in him the stuff 
 Out of which are made heroes. So Cromwell that day, 
 When Sir Warwick first spied him looked mere vulgar clay. 
 For, course-featured and clumsily dressed to our trim 
 Courtier dandy he seemed, while admitting the vim 
 Of the man by his speech, one to whom just a few 
 Careless thoughts he might spare ; but wise Hampden who knew 
 The stormy, volcanic, strong soul of the man, 
 With a judgment prophetic that fairly out ran 
 All forecast historic, replied : Should this thing 
 Come ever to blows between us and the king, 
 This man through the force that is in him will stand 
 The greatest of men in our loved English land. 
 ' And it all came out true, for his courage and force 
 Broke down all opposition, till over the course 
 He rode all- victorious, and in the dust down 
 Beneath his strong heel lay both mitre and crown.* 
 But Sir Philip, long after, his error confessed, 
 
 • 
 
 *I merely state the historic fact without comment. 
 
And informs us quite frankly that this man, so ill-dressed, 
 
 With his clothes better made and great deeds at his back. 
 
 Appeared to his courtly good taste with no lack 
 
 Of the presence majestic, but in Westminster Hall 
 
 Stood right royal, the peer of the best of them all, 
 
 A true auax andron from lower degree, 
 
 But a king spite of all by great nature's decree. , 
 
 By all which we may learn, too, how much the repose 
 Of our dear Veres cle Vere may be owing to clothes. 
 And how a white choker, French boots and black coat. 
 And long habit of wearing them, help to promote 
 The good blue-blood idea. 
 
 But yet to have got 
 A spotless escutcheon should not count for nought, 
 For the family tree bears, kind after kind, 
 Fruit bitter or sweet, and mind follows mind, 
 For like genders like, by heredity's laws. 
 Which comes but to this, that effect follows cause. 
 And so the blue blood — for we cannot efface 
 This truth from our minds— so oft wins in life's. race. 
 
 But still a great soul may inhabit the breast 
 Of a man without evea a motto or crest. 
 Whose honest forefathers of ledser account, 
 Perhaps because conscience forbade them to mount 
 On the ladder of wrong-to-their-fellows, bat sought 
 More or less, oft with failure, to act as they ought. 
 And so were left low, while others had found 
 Their way up the ladder ; some, its uppermost round. 
 Still 'tis only the trial, hard trial, that can 
 Show the stuff we are made of, and so prove the man. 
 
 But though no great scholar, my critic, like you, 
 Yet our friend was a specialist, knew what he knew 
 With great clearness of vision ; saw things through and through ; 
 Who though not read too widely, was always at home 
 On the terrible issue between him and Bome — 
 The issue clear-cut on his banner unfurled, 
 Of freedom or serfdom the whole round of the world. 
 But lean, ever lean 4 is Rome's teaching all through, 
 As though brains had been given to me and to you, 
 Not to think honest thought, but a mere make-believe, 
 On the vertebral column, meant but to relieve 
 Our aesthetical sense ; for a truncated cone 
 Promenading our strf ets would look odd, I must own ; 
 Yet no harder to faith than that dogma of Trent, 
 Upon which a whole world of waste thought has been spent. 
 
8 
 
 A Wafer not a Man, 
 
 That a wafer ! whic'ii we may examine with care, 
 
 Has legs, feet and arms, blood, bones, eyes and hair, 
 
 And though all our five senses, and gravity too, 
 
 Rise up in revolt 'gainst such magical view. 
 
 And pronounce it a plain honest wafer, in spite 
 
 Of all that Priest, Bishop or Pope may indite 
 
 To evince that it's not so ; and though we are told 
 
 To •* see " and to '• handle " — which are now, as of old. 
 
 The criteria the highest — and so put to rout 
 
 From the home of the reason the spectres of doubt. 
 
 For a miracle's proof the appeal's to some sense, 
 Say, of sight or of hearing, or handling ; and hence 
 Is sensed the criterion or for or against. 
 But no proof from the senses of others long since 
 Should be held so to-day as of force to convince 
 'Gainst our own cool, deliberate judgment, where each, 
 Trusty sense- by itself and the whole combined teach 
 The same truth, which no evidence can overthrow 
 For such evidence would be seme-evideuce ; so 
 Could it not upset this, the felt, tasted and seen 
 By us who are now, not by those who have been, 
 And whose judgment however considered, of what 
 They had seen, as they write, could be certainly not 
 Of weight equal to ours, so clear, vivid, intense, 
 Sharply outlined and present.each instant to sense. 
 But no miracle ever was wrought to enforce 
 A belief so absurd, so opposed to the course 
 Of nature, where reason and sense walk abreast 
 And. each honest enquirer's a much honored guest. 
 But though with our teeth, horrid thought ! we should chew 
 Christ's own very " flesh," say, what good could it do. 
 When ** the flesh profits not " ; but ** the spirit," not it, 
 •' Is the life-giving power," as in scripture 'tis writ. 
 If " the flesh counts for naught " then why end not the strife, 
 When ** the words that I spake, they are spirit and life," 
 Are the words at the close, which words if not meant 
 To sum up and explain ; then pray what their intent. 
 
 E'en after Christ's blessing the wine, it was wine. 
 For •♦ I will not henceforth drink this fruit of the vine," 
 Till in heaven itself I drink it anew, 
 (Were the words that he spake) my disciples with you. 
 Thus after the cup-consecration 'twas wine. 
 As Clirist had declared, still *'- the fruit of the vine." 
 

 
 What ! give his own blood as together they sup, 
 His own very blood handed round in a cup. 
 
 But instead of the bread and the wine which we see 
 To be bread and wine still, ** in rememberance of me/' 
 A bare wafer they give ; but why not the wine too ? 
 What 1 level the priestcaste with me and with you I 
 As though the religion of Christ suffered caste 
 To exist in his church — drawing lines hard and fast 
 Between people and priest — whereas we are told 
 That each Christian' i a priest 15 of the one common fold 
 Whose ** sacrifice " is not the *• Host of the Mass," 
 But " of praise " the peculiar of no special class. 
 But while Democrats here and Republicans there — 
 Change the name if you will, it don't matter a hair — 
 Are wrangling so furious about the best fare 
 For the nation's digestion ; and quacks of all kinds 
 Have their nostrums of cure-all, and each of them finds 
 Appropriate audience ; and while they abuse 
 Or belaud foe or friend, we're in danger to lose 
 Very liberty's self; for mob-law rules the roast, 
 And impugned is our freedom of speech, the proud boast 
 Of the true Saxon soul, once so toasted and sung 
 As the prized of all prizes that ever was wrung 
 From the clutch of the Despot— the high water mark 
 Of our civilized life. 
 
 POL. 
 
 But no ravening shark 
 May devour us at will ; for the hook in his jaw 
 To restrain his bad will is the power of the law. 
 
 PBO. 
 
 True ; but law what is it, when of soul there's the lack. 
 
 For though law works so well with a man at its back. 
 
 Yet with men who can't face a great crisis alone. 
 
 Yea, with men who dare scarcely their souls call their own — 
 
 Men who lean on a priesthood with no better brains 
 
 Then' their own at the start, and whose teaching ingrains 
 
 Grotesque false ideas, through grind, ever grind. 
 
 On the reverent, youthful, susceptible mind, 
 
 Till this mind is ground down to their ends, and new tracks, 
 
 Through which facts become figments, and figments seem facts, 
 
 Are cut deep in the mind, clean athwart the old course. 
 
 Channelled out through long ages therein by the force 
 
 Of the currents of thinas — not the whimseys of thought, 
 
 By the priest-minds of all lands so zealously taught, 
 
 But by things y real things ; and yet things what are they 
 
m 
 
 I 1 
 I t 
 
 I 
 
 - 10 
 
 « 
 
 » Or their impress, when fancy's allowed her full sway, 
 And denies what we see in the full blaze of "^day. 
 So things get all twisted, and colored, and cast 
 In a shape hard as steel in the mould of the past, 
 ^^ But if law, through men's weakness, gets thrust to the wall, 
 
 Then on Tihom for relief may we trustfully call. 
 But why punish a man because he can'c see 
 What yet he cannot^ is a puzzle to me. 
 'Tis 'gainst i/itsview dogmatic, intolerant, taught 
 By schoolman and Pope, and so throughly inwrought 
 In their web-and-woof texture — the all present soul 
 Which pervades, and infolds and informs the great whole — 
 'Tis gainst this, in behalf of the great human right 
 Of the free honest thinking of all that I write, 
 Not so much 'gainst their creed ; still I scarce can conceive 
 How a cultured, strong-souled, thoughtful man can believe, 
 Or of plain vulgar sense, the strange dogmas of Trent, 
 But it's not upon this that my thoughts are now bent, 
 But on the clear danger that threatens our kind. 
 Should Rome, the chief foe of free thought, on the mind 
 Try to put on the gags ^, which our newspaper press 
 And week-kneed politicians are fain to confess 
 They dare not tear off, scarce more dreadmg the boat 
 Of old Charon himself than the loss of a vote. 
 
 Hence, while liberty's trod under foot by fierce mobs - 
 Who of our whole memberdom feels the big throbs 
 Of the heart all indignant, through sense of such wrong ? 
 More likely the thought that first leaps to the tongue 
 Is just this, serve them right : the whole ignorant crew, 
 With their Orange confreres have got only their due ; 
 And, for all that I care, the whole rabble rout 
 Arc at liberty fuFest to tight the thing out, 
 I have matters m >re near, that concern me far more, 
 To be shortly discussed on the Parliament floor, 
 As, which party shall win in our politics' race, 
 And who, Edv.ard or John, shall experience how base 
 Are the hearts of the herd who deny him first place, * 
 Shall we hold our head highest, and hold, too, the purse ? 
 Or shall they win the day ? Heaven ward off such curse 
 Of our times out of joint, since a curse to the we^ 
 
 • As that a wafer is a man. Indeed, Ignatius Loyola tells us "we ought ever to 
 hold as a settled principle that what I see to be white I should believe to be 
 
 black, if so defined by the church just as a corpse which allows itself to be 
 
 moved and led in every direction " ; but Christ on the contrary appeals to the 
 senses as the means of verification. *' Handle me ana see," for a spirit hath not 
 flesh and bone as ye set me have." 
 
 11! 
 
11 
 
 Great nature's aristoi by birthright decree. 
 
 The low-minded rabble — such prizes at stake — 
 
 Do they dream that we'd fight for their cause or their sake, 
 
 When the other-side party, especially, lie 
 
 In sly ambush to see if we raise such a cry 
 
 As the Catholic -Irish, the Roug(3 or the Blue 
 
 Might scent — spiced or not — and, to give them their due, 
 
 Our writers on both sides, almost to a fault, 
 
 So season their sibject with pepper and salt 
 
 And condiments sharp, that the seasoning almost 
 
 Is that which we taste, while the true flavor's lost. 
 
 So that scarce can we tell when we eat of the dish. 
 
 If the thing set before us is flesh, fowl or fish. 
 
 There are noble exceptions to this, it is true. 
 Men who think their own thoughts and dare speak them out too, 
 Yet they who stand up for the right are the few. 
 
 Brave, Earnest Men are our Great Want. 
 
 Men are willing enough o'er smooth waters to glide, 
 To sail with the wind and to row with the tide ; "^* - • 
 But to work 'gainst them both at a time when the sky 
 Looks scarce pleasant — we mean when no popular cry 
 Is the cry of the hour, but instead, au contraire. 
 The subject looks barren, and cold and thread-bare, 
 And distasteful enough— an old mummified cry 
 Exhumed for their vexing all ghostly an4 dry ; ? n^.. 
 
 But to the true see-er fresh, sappy and rife, 
 With the hot pulsing blood and full currents of life. 
 But how many are they who love truth for herself ? 
 How many instead, whose one dream is of pelf. 
 Or of rising in life, pressing on might and main. 
 Taking smallest account of the wounded and slain. 
 Asking this of themselves, how and in what degree 
 This thing may affect the well-being of me, 
 And so truckling and cringing and shaping their course, 
 By the well-beaten path which their interests enforce 
 On their shivering natures, as that on which they 
 Their small ends to secure have to travel alway. 
 What from such can we hope who derisively ask. 
 If the freedom of mankind is their special task, 
 These things scarce remotely concern them, they think, 
 And so all such encroachments on liberty bUnk, 
 When their own to make money or wriggle through life, 
 Qr to rise in the world, avoiding all strife 
 
H f 
 
 Interfering with these, is not touched. But are they 
 The persons on whom to rely should a day f 
 
 Of reckoning o'ertake us, would these be the men 
 To prove heroes or martyrs by sword or by pen ? 
 I fear they would, rather than this, bend the knee 
 To the foeman of courage and will, and agree 
 To whatever conditions, if he would but give 
 The poor dastardly slave-soul permission to live. 
 But one word let me here say, our vote is a trust, 
 Not ours but our country's, and therefore we must, 
 Upon ethical grounds, before conscience decide 
 What is best for the whole, and be turned not aside 
 I By the voice of self-interest, or suasion, or force 
 
 ; Of habit ; but may we walk each in the course 
 
 I Of stern duty to right, of whom this may be said 
 
 j 1 These are men who are neither seduced nor misled. 
 
 ] Oh, that those who profess — in love only I plead^ 
 
 Would hve up but like men to the beautiful creed 
 '^r Of their good '* constitution " which binds them to show 
 On whatever occasion their face to the foe 
 Of freedom and right, and be sober and true, ' 
 Or, to state it in brief, to be noble all-through. 
 
 But, as Christians too oft, whose high principles claim 
 Noble lives as their fruit, by their characters shame 
 Their profession of such ; so of Orangemen too, 
 Though to liberty's voice so impulsively true, 
 Far too many too often forget that they're bound 
 To exhibit such tracts as are sure to redound 
 To their Orangeman-credit, and win the applause 
 Of the wise and the true, and so help the good cause 
 Of blest freedom, commissioned to go the whole round. 
 Of the world without stay, till no slave-soul be found. 
 ' As ail honor to him who of old, at the head 
 
 Of his brave little band at Thermopyloe led 
 His heroes, resolved or to die, or be free 
 In their beautiful Greece, nor bend the proud knee 
 To that master of slaves. So, all honor we lay 
 At his feet who what duty mfeant showed us that day, 
 When the issue involved was the citizen-right , 
 Freely granted in turn, to %»alk in full sight 
 Undisputed, of all men, a test question put 
 To our civilizaiion — an axe to the root 
 Of our hollow pretences — and answered all round 
 I With fierce yeUings and cursings, loud, long and profound, 
 
 ' And with missiles shot thick from far and from near, 
 
 ill Revealing the fact of how thin the veneer, 
 
 !' • 
 
 I ' 
 
 I 
 
18 
 
 Or the varnish alone, which coats over and hides 
 
 The coarse native grain which shows through, and derides 
 
 Oar much vaunted progress ; for under our skin 
 
 The hrute still survives, and so shows us our kin 
 
 To the cruel and murdering savage, who links 
 
 His crimes to his creed, and remorselessly thinks — 
 
 His soul so perverted, so morally blind — 
 
 His Gods to appease by the blood of his kind. 
 
 So, our Alvds, Inquisitors, and the whole brood 
 Of tyrants and vampires come well by their blood 
 From their savage forefathers, selfish, cruel, untaught 
 In those principles just, fundamental, inwrought 
 In the minds of the wise, as the priors of thought. 
 
 'Twns this spirit which urged the disciples, when men 
 Rejected their Lord, to "call down" there and then — 
 Impatient, intolerant, headlong, untaught — 
 "Fire from Heaven" to slay them ; but said Christ, ye know not 
 My methods and ends ; I have come here to win 
 Souls, enslaved and mistaught, from the thraldom of sin, 
 " Not men's lives to destroy." Such " vengeance," of right, 
 " Is mine," saith Jehovah, and " I7 will requite." 
 What, call down fire on men, when full oft we know not 
 The feeling at bottom that prompts the fierce thought. 
 If a spirit imperious that brooks no control 
 Has not been the prime mover deep down in the soul, 
 But so cunningly hid and disguised that we fail — 
 Not too willing, I fear much, to lift off the veil — 
 To perceive that base counterfeit zeal for the lord 
 'Tis that sways 'gainst the spirit and law of his word. 
 
 'Tis against this like spirit of Rome that we stand, 
 'Twas against it that day that our brave little band 
 In protest stocd up— an assertion of right ^ 
 
 And of high- mettled manhood to test it, in sight 
 Of the Sun and the foe, as, defiant of fate, „ 
 
 They mairched 'mid that crowd bristling over with hate. 
 For war to the knife is declared'^' 'gainst the right 
 Of free institutions and speech — the delight 
 Of the noble and free, who must have elb^w room. 
 And the free air of heaven, not life in a tomb 
 Stagnant, walled-in and stifling, but one that exults 
 In tracing to adequate cause all results. 
 And in joyously grappling in face of the day. 
 With all moral problems, not fearing that they 
 When praying for guidance will miss the right way. 
 
 * ** The Catholic Church," writes Cardinal Manning, "cannot cease to preach 
 the doctrine. . . .of the sovereignty, both spiritual and temporal, of the Holy See." 
 
, I 
 
 '; 
 
 ii! 
 
 !'k 
 
 Ii'!; 
 liii. 
 
 ill . 
 '1 1 ' 
 
 ■hi I 
 
 Ii 
 
 HI! 
 
 •Ill 
 
 14 
 
 We must not Condemn Indiscriminately, 
 
 But though we write thus, yet with reverent thought 
 We think of the sweet, saintly souls, who, though caught 
 In these meshes of error, yet lived lives that prove 
 On how stinted a fare we may live, if the love 
 Of the beautiful gcod is deep-seated within. 
 And with loathing the soul shrinks from contact with sin. 
 For though they received the whole creed as a whole, 
 And believed they believed, yet no genuin^ soul 
 Ever fed upon husks, 'tis the kernal that lies, 
 Though concealed by thick wrappings, that soul-food supplies, 
 'Tis thus that the plant for its own proper good, 
 Selects from the dust of the desart its food. 
 So, too, saintly natures to-day as of old. 
 Pick out from the rubbish the grains of pure gold ; 
 And though stunted and cramped, and in spirit outside 
 The close precincts of Rome ; yet true souls lived and died 
 In communion with her. But it's not against such 
 We here lift up our voice, but 'gainst those who would clutch 
 All power, with this end, to crush out honest thought — 
 Not against priests and nuns and laymen mistaught 
 And all saintly souls — her St. Bernards of old, 
 Guyons, Fenelons, Pascals, who hold what they hold 
 Through a weakness quite human, since on the young mind 
 Had been pressed every argument reason could find, 
 Or fancy imagme, or feeling suggest, 
 And this moulding begun when a babe on the breast 
 And continued throughout, till the mind gets a set 
 Hard as concrete almost. But should doubts chance to fret 
 The soul any hour, they are quashed by the voice, 
 
 ** Hear the Church,'' Yet how Simple its Meaning. 
 
 *• Hear the church," •' hear the church," — words that leave 
 
 them no choice, 
 They conceive, though the senses and reason rebel, 
 And the words so ?ll-quoted a meaning compel 
 The clear converse of that they are held to convey. 
 For the sense of the words is as clear as the day. 
 
 The matter was this, if a Christian should do 
 A wrong to his fellow, what course to pursue ? 
 Said Christ in this case such an one see alone ; 
 But if he refuse for his vn'ong to atone, 
 
 11 
 
Take one or more with you to make the case clear, 
 And so win your brother ; but if still he wont hear, 
 '* Tell the church " there assembled ; but if he still choose 
 Not to listeTi to them e'en ; then must you refuse 
 To own bim a brother. Since unwilting to bide 
 By the law here laid down, you must place him outside 
 The visible fold ; and such discipline finds 
 The approval of heaven ; and as such truly binds ^ 
 And where meet two or three in his name Christ is there 
 To sanction their actiou, or answer their prayer, 
 And of snchf few or mani/, is the church everywhere*. 
 Such is the plain meaning of hearing the church. 
 As expounded by Christ, and we vainlj here search 
 For a word about hearing the church where the creed 
 Is the question at issue ; though 'tis granted indeed 
 " Hear the church " has a jingle that speaks ta the ear. 
 Though not to the sens for the thing is sun-clear. 
 'Tis a case of wrono-doino, the text plainly saith, 
 But has naught here to do with the dogmas of faith. 
 
 The Promise of Christ to be with His Church Conditional, 
 
 POP. 
 
 Buu it was the plain promise of Christ to stand by 
 His church to the end. May we not then rely 
 On his word ? Hence the church, how could it fall away 
 With his promise thus pledged to uphold it alway, 
 Hence that .which your grand '* Reformation " you call. 
 Was a mere Luther-schism — no reform at all. 
 
 PRO. 
 
 But his promise to be with his church to the end 
 Was conditioned by 5 thi^ ; that his people attend 
 To the duty prescribed, preach the gospel to men — 
 Sot some spurious append — but the gospel — and then 
 Rely on his promise, teach men to obey 
 What " He had commanded " ; and to the last day 
 Whatever might happen, his love would not fail, 
 Nor in heaven or earth aught against it prevail. 
 But the words are not absolute ; •* do this and live " 
 Are but the conditional promise they give ; 
 
 * Thus, whose sins they forgive are forgiven, and whose 
 They retain are retained whiie Christ's will they refuse. 
 
I 
 
 ; t ■ 
 
 
 ii!' 
 
 '■■\ 
 
 r 
 
 16 
 
 The Roman Church Declared Liable to Apostatize. 
 
 As saith Paul to the Roman, the then church of God, 
 
 ** While accepting his goodness, remember the rod. 
 
 •• If the natural branches he spared not— the Jew — 
 
 '* Take heed in his wratn that he spare not thee too. 
 
 •' Thou standest by faith ; if herein you abide, 
 
 ii 'Twill be well ; but, if not, god will thee, ^^ too excide." 
 
 This surely is plain. Let Rome then not scoff. 
 Or maintain that her church never could be cut off. 
 
 A Fearful Apostasy of the Church Foretold, 
 
 Paul has likewise declared that men would backslide, 
 That the time would yet come when they would not abide 
 The truth, but to fables would be turned aside. 
 But sound doctrine, urged he, and godliness choose. 
 And all •' Pagan " and " old grannies' fables " refuse. 
 But if Protestantism The Apostasy be 
 It is strange that her doctrines in no wise agree. 
 
 The Marks by which to be Recognised, 
 
 With the marks in the scriptures by which to be known. 
 
 But as characteristics in every zone, 
 
 They strike as the prominent features of Rome. 
 
 Now, if Romans believe that whatever is writ 
 In the Bible is true ; then must they admit 
 That a fearful apostasy from the Christ fold — 
 The primitive church — is there clearly foretold, 
 And hence of a great " Reformation " the need. 
 The lapsed to bring back to the old Christian creed. 
 For even of primitive times we are told 
 (What time as she passed on would surely unfold) 
 That the mischief then working, like leaven in dough, 
 ! Would to a great head oj apostasy grow. »3 
 
 I That apostates would in the hereafter be found 
 
 ' '• Forbidding to marry." as though men were bound 
 
 To lead celibate lives, whereas marriage in all 
 Is an honored estate, as made clear by St. Paul. 
 Now to look at the case with a clear, candid eye, 
 To wJiat Church do these marks to-be-known-by apply ? 
 And what's Holy Water but a pure Pagan rite 
 As we see it it Virgil, crept in in the night 
 
17 
 
 Of religious decay; when, enfeebled in thought, 
 
 Men the masculine teaching of Christ had forgot. 
 
 But the Romanist church if more decent today, 
 
 So much owes to Luther, whoso broom swept away 
 
 Those shamfuUest scandals their chronicles note 
 
 Of the state of that church in tiiose ages remote, 
 
 With religicn left out of the programme, while they 
 
 Eternally boast their succession, and play 
 
 Their terrible game with men's bodies and souls. 
 
 As the volume of history amply unroDs. 
 
 In their horrible orgies, their heathenish feasts, 
 
 Eeligion was left to good laymen and priests. 
 
 And sweet women and nuns, who, separate from 
 
 The base outside thing in spirit, were one 
 
 In their love of the right, while the others had not 
 
 In the true inward Church of the Christ part or lot. 
 
 Paul avers that young women should marry — the home 
 
 Such a discipline is for the virtues, but Eome 
 
 In nunneries shuts them, not thinking at all 
 
 Of the'advice given here from the pen of St Paul, 
 
 Who, too, nays that Bishops, wed but to " one wife," F{ 
 
 Should bring up their children to act so in life 
 
 As christians should do. Hence those celibate hosts 
 
 Of priests, monks and nuns, of whom Popery boasts, 
 
 Bishops, Cardinals, Popes --«Zi forbidden to wed" — 
 
 Are Apostasy's brands in reUef on the head 
 
 Of this Popish delusion—a plain outward mark, * 
 
 Clear as letters of light on a ground- work of dark. 
 
 By which to he known. 
 
 Bidding, too, to " abstain " 
 From the feast spread by nature, our Uves to sustain, 
 To be gladly accepted each day of the week ; 
 For in the New Testament vainly we seek 
 For fish-bidden Fridays or Wednesdays, although 
 Warned well of the consequence surely to flow 
 From such childish observance of months, times and years — 
 Poor " beggarly " rags — a respect which betrays* 
 The sick state of the soul, as if fish or flesh food, 
 More on this day than that, could produce moral good 
 Or evil. As Christ says, not that which goes in 
 By the mouth hurts the soul. The one fountain of sin 
 Is the heart that's within. Hence no salve that they preach 
 Can ever the seat of the malady reach ; 
 E'en should the church bid it, still must we not do 
 The thing we are ordered by Paul to eschew. 
 
 * Gal. IV and Gal. vi. 
 
18 
 
 We Wftre bondsmen to forms, days, rites. Now we're free ; 
 Let us henceforth " stand fast " in our grand •' hberty." 
 If we keep times and such like we thereby degrade 
 The religion of Christ. Hence St. Paul was •' afraid 
 He had laboured in vaia " ; for p straw as it shows 
 From what quarter tb- wind comes , so heresy grows ,2 
 A poisonous Upaa from but a mere seed. 
 Then turn not aside nor in folly give heed 
 To the rattles and tomtoms and toys that engage 
 The child's mind, and now the second childhood of age. 
 To such state of collapse Christ's religion has sunk 
 Withered down to the roots by pope, priest and monk. 
 
 For though men may walk straight when the tutelar mind 
 Of the teacher to guide them is there, yet we find 
 As a fact, when he's gone that the high-table-land 
 They so happily trod, while still holding the hand 
 That lifted them out of themselves, has an air. 
 Unexperienced before, grown so chilly and rare. 
 Which their natures grown coarse can scarcely endure ; * "" 
 And hence, step by step, they descend from the pure 
 Healthy air of the heights to the low-lying plain, 
 In whose close denser air they are fain to remain. * 
 
 -i '. 
 
 A Departure from a High Ideal Quite Common, 
 
 M 
 
 And this picture historic throughout seems the same, 
 Hence the lofty-souled Buddha to-day's but a name — 
 His doctrine forgotten, while meaningless rites. 
 Praying wheels and prostrations usurp the clear heights 
 Of self-purity, love and such virtues of soul 
 As link private good to the good on the whole. 
 
 In the dark *' later"^ times " — middle ages, we'll say — 
 " When men from the truth shall have drifted away," 
 " Daemon doctrines," we're told by St. Paul, will have sway. 
 And they'll ** marriage forbid " and command to " abstain 
 From meats,'* as though heaven had made such in vain. 
 Whereas 'tis there writ, " every creature of God, 
 If with thanks 'tis accepted, is meant for our good." 
 
 Now if these be the viarks which, like stamps on the clothes 
 Of our convicts, declare them humanity's foes, 
 
 1 Tim. IV, 1 to 10. 
 
,19 
 
 « 
 
 Let us but ask ourselves in what shurch these inhere — 
 
 These Apostasy-branCs stamped in characters clear. 
 
 If you'd win, then, the honour which sound te-iching brings 
 
 You will put the churc' t^pnladds, '• in mind of these* things." 
 
 But looks it not strange that wherever you search, 
 Such marks are not found in the Protestant church. 
 There is no prohibition of marriage or meats, 
 Hence none need be troubled about what he eats. 
 Be it flesh, fish or aught ; for not that which goes in 
 By the lips, as Christ shows, can be possibly sin. 
 And as marriage in all is commended by Heaven, 
 To laymen and pastors the liberty's given 
 To marry or not when they wish, whereas Home 
 Forbids marriage to Pope, Bishop, Priest, Monk and Nun — ^ 
 
 Whole hosts almost countless commanded to shun. 
 As though plague-infected, this God-given right, 
 Yet Rome they obey, while Paul's warning they slight. 
 
 But how could the church fall away? Ask St. Paul, 
 Who declares that it would, and in spite, too, of all 
 The warnings vouchsafed it, yea, that there would be, 
 By pre-eminence special, '* The Apostasy," • ^ 
 The Hee Apostasia fearful, fell, black, \ 
 
 Charged with pestilent teachings, of which or the rack,^^ 
 The torturing fire, or what not, we may take . ^ 
 Our terrible choice ; and all this/or Christ's sake. 
 
 How the church lost her freedom was not by one stroke, 
 But by little and little she slipped 'neath the yoke ; 
 " The mystery of evil doth work," writes St. Paul, 
 In this my own day. But the great fearful fall 
 From the pure heights of Christ in the future is sure, 
 When *♦ they will not," I see it, " sound doctrine endure," 
 But *• to fables will turn." But, I warn you, ♦* refuse 
 All profane old wives' fables," for else you may lose 
 Your way 'mid the jungles of life, and pursue . 
 
 A course that leads far from the beautiful true. 
 
 But for '*fablos profane" and "old wives" you may search 
 For greater in vain than are those of this church, 
 Which should I set down, spite of what pains I took 
 To be brief, it would needs be alone a big book. 
 Yea, in e'en smallest matters 'twould seem as though they 
 Dare with studied affront Christ's commands disobey. 
 Give no man the title of *' Father y'' says Christ, 
 But in Catholic parlance, defiant, each priest 
 
 *1 Tim. IV, € ; see in the verses preceeding what these things were. 
 
20 
 
 Is, as such, Father Murphy or Phelan, or what 
 Patronymic by birth he may chance to have got. 
 
 But though warned 'gainst • 'false teachers," the church | 
 scarcely seemed 
 To remember the warning, but slumbered and dreamed — 
 Dreams, foolish, grotesque, till things reached such a height 
 That lion-souled Luther waked up in his might, 
 Blew his clarion blast, and the nations awoke. 
 When thousands on thousands threw off the bad yoke. 
 Which had long galled their shoulders ; while Tetzel the bold 
 To deliver men's souls, blatant, shameless — for gold, 
 Like anv small truck, his indulgences sold. 
 But Luther fired quick a full-charged, well-aimed bomb. 
 Which made a wide hole in this gentleman's drum. 
 
 Now, as Christ and Paul taught, on the scriptures we're' 
 thrown, 
 Outside which nothing certain is really known. 
 Traditional dogmas which stood in the way 
 Of the teaching of Moses — which Christ in his day 
 Ret aside as misleading — how could such be thought 
 To equal in value what Christ himself taught. 
 Then if we would know what he taught, we but need 
 At first hand * the original documents read, 
 But in every dogma we shape in our creed, « '-^-: .. 
 In every admission of rite there's the need . .^ • •. 
 
 To consider with care, if such be a shoot, •' ; 
 
 By proper descent, from the true parent root, ! ■• r 
 
 Or a parasite growing from roots of its own, 
 To the hurt of the plant-life on which it is grown. 
 
 The story of Bome is not lovely ^7 indeed, - , * ■'. 
 
 A stage upon which too oft passion and greed • ,■ ^tv? 
 
 Played their terrible parts, where Pope almost vied 
 With Pope in intolerance, cruelty, pride. 
 Where, then, was the Church / 
 
 As in Israel of old 
 **Seven thousand unknown to the Prophet,'' we're told, 
 
 * Stephen, bishop of Rome pleading tradition for what St. Cyprian believed 
 to be error, Cyprian replied : " What does he mean by tradition ? Does he mean 
 the authority of Christ in the gospels, and of the Apostles in their Epistles ? Let 
 this tradition be sacred ; for, if we return to this head and original of divine 
 tradition, human error will cease. " .... But, says he, " custom without 
 truth is only antiquated error." 
 
 So too, says St. Augustine, when writing against the Douatists, "let them 
 show me their church, not in the councils of their Bishops .... but in 
 the preaching of the Evangelists and in the canonical authorities of the sacied 
 books. This is our foundation, to which we inviola\)ly attach ourselves, reposing 
 only upon tfie Scripture which is come to us from the prophets and Apostle.'* 
 
 
/ 
 
 • 11 
 
 But known to Jehovah, had not bowed the knee 
 
 To Baal, when all seemed apostate, and he'^ 
 
 Stood alone as he thought ; but 'twas not so : So here, 
 
 When things all around were so barren and sere 
 
 Through apostasy's breath, saintly souls not a few, 
 
 Through their love of the morally beautiful, grew 
 
 Into sweet Christian women and men ; and, so, were 
 
 The Church, "the seven thousand," scattered everywhere, 
 
 Unacknowledged or not, as it might be, but known 
 
 T'o him, who thinks not as man thinks, as his own : 
 
 While Apostasy rampant proclaimed herself queen. 
 
 Without rival, alike of the' unseen and the seen. 
 
 The idolatrous hosts with their priesthood that day — 
 
 See St. Paul on this point — had it all their own way, 
 
 But a " remnant " was there, '* seven thousand " — a few 
 
 To the Myriads of Israel — who their Lord knew. 
 
 To the great blatant Church «^ith its priesthood and all 
 
 The world in a string 'twas a thing very small : 
 
 But pureness of heart is the great all in all ; 
 
 And of such, pure of heart, was the Church* of that day. 
 
 And of such is the Church composed now and alway. 
 
 These, then, were the Church. For throughout the long 
 Of darkness and folly and sin, when the grain [reign 
 
 Sown by Christ '* in his field was with tares " overgrown. 
 Saintly women and men, if to fame little known. 
 Pure, gentle at heart, lived lives often to shame 
 Many Christians to-day, who feel free to declaim 
 At their strangeness of creed : and yet beauty of soul, 
 An uns;)otted life, and Christ-likeness, the goal 
 They proposed to themselves, reminds us we read, 
 •' By their fruits ye shall know them," and not by their creed. 
 Such as these — be their creed what it might — represent 
 The true Church in the world ; nor need we invent 
 Or search out any other. The Taulers were there. 
 Sweet Cecelias and saintly'Elizabeths — rare 
 Exemplars of virtue white-robed, mid a state 
 So sad for a Catholic pen to relate ; ^ 
 
 Yet Baronius tells us, that in the tenth age 
 Of the Church's ill progress (and yet 'tis a page 
 
 * As Elijah of old, seeing the wide-spread apostasy of Israel, pleaded to God 
 against them, saying ... *' Lord, I am left alone and they seek my life." 
 But no, said God, though you may not know them, "I have reserved to myself 
 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Even so, writes Paul, "at 
 this time also is a remnant left." So, too, in the great Apostasy of the Roman 
 Church. Rom. xi: 1-5. The 7,000 in Israel were the invisible church in the 
 bosom of the surrounding visible church organizations. 
 
Well worth our eonsulting) that women most vile, 
 
 In their ungovemed passions, feared not to defile 
 
 *' The chair e'en of Peter," but into that seat 
 
 Thrust their vile pu.vamours, and down under their feet 
 
 Laid Rome's proud Uara ; while of the strange facts 
 
 Of those horrible ages, he tells how the acts 
 
 Of each Pope who preceded were cancelled by him, 
 
 Who as Pontiff succeeded, and just as the whim 
 
 Or passion possessed him. And so passed the ball 
 
 From hand on to hand in the Vatican hall. • 
 
 As then those infallibles played their vile game 
 
 Which Baronius writes of with swellings of shame, 
 
 *• Christ was in a deep sleep in the ship," he avers, 
 
 While the billows surged wildly ; but nothing deters 
 
 In high heaven or earth such fierce i*avening kites. 
 
 Who far more than a century, Gerebrand writes. 
 
 Swooped down on the church, " fifty Popes," a disgrace — 
 
 Nice successors of Peter — to it and the race. 
 
 Apart from the presence of goodness and truth 
 
 Of a dry bones succession what would be the worth ? 
 
 What a picture we've here of the church gone astray 
 
 As foretold by St. Paul ; what a falling away 
 
 From the primiti'^e church while under the sway 
 
 Of its first christian teachers. 
 
 , ,, ^ ■ ■ . ' - > • ■ 
 
 PAP. 
 
 p . It could not fall away. 
 
 '■ PRO. 
 
 Yet historians in colours the darkest portray '9 
 
 Its horrible state. Why will Romans not read 
 
 Their own histories and learn how deep was the need 
 
 Of the great Reformation, which Luther at last 
 
 Attempted and made, as his clarion blast 
 
 Drew myriads to him, the brave iconoclast. 
 
 But the falling away referi'od to above 
 
 Was such in its fearfulness as to disprove 
 
 The averment of Rome that the church could not fall ; 
 
 For 'tis proved by stern facts, as foretold by St. Paul, 
 
 Who e'en tells us some marks by which to be known. 
 
 Which to-day on its face are so palpably shown. 
 
 *' Three Popes at one time," and what they of each other 
 
 Spake, was hardly the language of brother towards brother ? 
 
 While two Popes and two councils, on the Billingsgate level, 
 
 Pronounced each the other the church of the Devil. 
 
9« 
 
 In the century prior to Luther, had not 
 The Lord Cardinal of Florence declared they had g^t 
 So deep in the mire of corruption, that naught 
 But the wholesale reform of the church, as he saith, 
 " Of the hetid and the members, in moraU and faith,'* 
 Will suffice, hence "this council must not be dissolved'* 
 Till this be affected, so much in't was involved. 
 
 And had not the V' Orey Friurs,'' in the aKe of that foreran 
 The council of Pisa — so we read iti Du Pin — 
 Preached publicly this, that the pope was the sure 
 ** Forerunner of Anti-Christ,'' men to allure 
 From Christ to the Devil ; while in Petrarch we see 
 The words of a poet contemporary, 
 *• Home, Hell of the living, church of heresy ** 
 In fifteen hundred and twelve, alas, such 
 Said the poj>e is the state of the Catholic Church 
 That *' it must be reformed." How it needed it see, 
 At the Lateran Council, what was spoke by Begni. 
 
 But though by historians much, much is confessed, 
 Yet when, five years after, our Luther impressed 
 With this need of reform, but, dallying not, 
 Fired into the camp of the foe his hot shot. 
 Which rang through all Europe, it startled them all • 
 From ultima Thule to the Vatican Hall, 
 Causing such indignation, that he, a poor priest . 
 Should attempt to do this. What ! He mean to resist 
 The power of the church ! Bah I He's gone in the head 
 By some sickness of brain, or some demon misled. 
 
 But, spite of the church and the Empire, entrenched 
 Behind his loved wall of the scriptures, he wrenched 
 From the pope half of Europe, and in spite of the storm 
 Of war long and fierce which raged round him, poor worm. 
 And threatened his life, the great cause of reform 
 Won its way in the world — when laying his head 
 On his pillow at last, he died in his own bed. 
 
 Think me not as a lawyer just holding a brief, 
 When warning a-^ainst the foolhardy belief, 
 That our liberty's fixed on a basis so sure 
 That we have but to drift, feeling wholly secure 
 Against all reactions and follies and ^° all 
 The sophistries ringing from altar and stall, 
 In which men low and high get entangled, nor can. 
 Lacking insight, escape ; for the eye of the man 
 Is the gift not of college but nature, and hence 
 A fool may all ologies know, yet fool-sense 
 
/ 
 
 Be fool-sense to the end. As with men color-blind 
 
 No teaching can show the red ray to the mind. 
 
 So although men may prove themselves full of resource 
 
 And able to reason with clearness and force, 
 
 When their data you grant them ; yet, lacking the sense 
 
 For selecting their data, they're at an immense 
 
 Disadvantage thereby, though themselves may not know 
 
 Their lack of the sense, or what sorrows may flow 
 
 From such guidance as theirs to those, who depend 
 
 On them to arrive without hurt at the end 
 
 Of their journey of life. For although there's no lack 
 
 Of logic forensic with learning to back, 
 
 And of eloquent words for attack or defence. 
 
 Yet one ounce of clear insight and plain common sense 
 
 Is more worth than a ton of their nebulous thought, 
 
 By the schoolmen of old, and our Newmans now taught — 
 
 Mere cobweby thought ; for in spite of their clatter 
 
 They've never got down to the root of the matter. 
 
 See how Christ from the heart tore the wretched disguise — 
 A subtly wrought texture of cunning and lies — 
 When the Doctors of Law, sly and hard to the core 
 Of their being, and stuffed with traditional lore,=»^ ^ 
 
 Neutralizing, obscuring, distorting thereby 
 The plain, simple command, changing it to a lie, ' 
 
 Their souls so materialized, formal, and full / 
 
 Of concern for the outward, so sottishly dull, ' '• 
 
 That they fail to perceive— was this, since so inclined ? — 
 That the essence of things is the thought in the mind. 
 
 And when Christ's disciples soul-dull gathered not 
 The meaning of that which just then he had taught, ' 
 
 See how with a flash of the soul he lights up ; 
 
 The dark subject to them. 'Tis not cleansing the cup ' 
 Or the platter or hands that avails. 'Tis the heart 
 The 5ole fountain of wrong, out of which ever start 
 Evil thoughts, prompting murder, false witness and sin 1 
 
 Of protean shape, coming all from within. 
 Tis the heart must be cleansed. But only what's kin 
 To mind can the mind touch and win us from sin. 
 Not fish upon Fridays, nor passport at death. 
 Nor oil ''in extremis," bestowed when the breath 
 Is just leaving the body — not all of them can 
 Touch the quick of our being, the soul of the man. 
 
 Then our fish fasts, hair shirts, tortured flesh, to what end, 
 Holy water or crossings ? Is this to ascend 
 To the heights to which Christ sought to lift human thought, 
 
 1 ;} t > 
 
26 > 
 
 Or to drop to the cult of the Fakir " distraught. 
 
 But in vain do they draw round the church a priest-fence, 
 When each Christian's a priest »5 in the true inward sense, 
 Aaronic in office, to offer always 
 The sacrifice due of well-doing and praise,* 
 And vainly we search in the scripture to find 
 One instance in which any dared to unbind 
 Or bind for a man, in the life pa^u the grave. 
 His sins — to remit or retain tLem — to have 
 Or to damn by his word, be he true man or knave, 
 For such is the doctrine by which they deprave 
 The teaching of Paul, and men's souls so enslave. 
 And how unlike this is what's taught by St. Paul 
 And by the Apostles of Christ, one and all. 
 That *' each of himself shall account give to God, 
 Of the deeds done on earth, be they evil or good," 
 And receive the award, while each standing alone 
 No favour for saint's sake or Pontiff's is shown. 
 For 'tis God's, only God's, to condemn or condone. ' 
 
 But do they more hope from Priest, Peter, or Paul 
 Than from the great merciful father of all ? 
 
 But the thing is too monstrous— sc contrary to 
 The soul ihat pervades and the practice all through ' 
 
 '* The Acf J " and ♦* Epistles " disclaiming such view. 
 The soul of the teaching of Christ and of all 
 The Apostles ; the practice of Peter and Paul, 
 So antipodal to the " absolve thee " of Rome 
 Floui this dogma — to Peter and Paul then unknown — 
 Incongruous concepts that contraryways tend. 
 Like water and oil aye refusing to blend — ^!>? ^^' i v^^ ^^ 
 
 The whole volume of thought flowing steadily on 
 In one channel — of faith and repentance alone — 
 The one doorway through which entered Peter and Paul 
 Themselves, and now equally open to all. 
 But men's sins to remit, save declaratively 
 To just lay down the terms on which sins may he 
 Remitted — by faith and repentance, that so 
 Men with renewed minds and true faith may 'scape woe — 
 The twin-sister of sin — would be to, per f jrce, 
 The idea of God from the reason divorce. 
 But their preaching and practice show what they conceived 
 Was the thing they should preach, and, so, what they believed. 
 But the thing is a whole misconception althrough, 
 
 1 Peter ii, 5, 9, and Hebrew xiii, 15. 
 
As though aiming perversely the truth to eschew, 
 
 If the preaching and practice of those who should know — 
 
 The Apostles of Jesus — can anything show. 
 
 Thus, when Peter unlocked to the Gentiles the door 
 
 Of faith, makiug known the free, plenary store 
 
 Of forgiveness in Christ, what did he proclaim 
 
 As the doctrine of faith, but this, through Chriot^s name, 
 
 •* Whosoever believeth in him shall receive 
 
 " Forgiveness of sins " — this the gospel reprieve. 
 
 This, then, is the key^^ ; this, ihe loosing of sin ; 
 Thus Peter forgives men by letting them in 
 To the fold ; *' through Christ's name all believing in him 
 Shall his sins have forgiven." In this Peter shows 
 How"^ men may obtain for their conscience repose. 
 
 Can any one tell me the thing that is meant 
 By " the Church built on Peter ?" What is the content 
 Of the phrase, for I know not its burden of thought, 
 Though its clear, honest meaning I've honestly sought. 
 It simply means nothing — a jingle of words 
 Which appeals to the ear but to judgment affords 
 No picture at all of the core of the thought, ^ , ,1 
 
 A ghost of Creusa that cannot be caught. 
 
 But since writing the above, it occurs to me, what, 
 If some the old notion of Dcemons have got, 
 'Mongst whom Peter as Janitor, holdiug the keys. 
 Unlocks Heaven to all who the priesthood here please. 
 
 So says Plato, a Pagan, •' good men, when they die," 
 In the kingdom unseen "reach the dignity high" 
 ( Note how like the old Pagan this new Popish way) 
 '' Of Daemons — our canonized samts — who convey 
 
 *0n the day of Pentecost Peter (Acts ii.) had unlocked the kingdom of heaven 
 to THE JEWS ; and in the x of Acts t« the gentiles. Thus it was that he used 
 " the keys." In what way he unlocked to the latter the benefits of the christian 
 dispensation you may read Acts x, especially- fiom the 35th to 43rd verse. 
 
 Here Peter's mode of procedure for the remission of sins is made known 
 to us; "through Christ's name," says he, "every one that believeth in 
 him shall receive remission of sins." "Testifying," saj^s St. Paul, " both to 
 Jews and Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Chi ist." 
 Acts XX : 21. Christ told his disciples (Luke xxiv : 47) that " repentance and re- 
 mission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations." " Sirs," said the 
 jailer to Paul and Silas, " what must I do to be saved. And they said, believe on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." " Repent ye, therefore," says 
 Peter, " and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out," and so throughout. 
 Such were the conditions of salvation preached by Peter and Paul ; but not one 
 word is anywhere spoken of priestly absolution as entitling to heaven — no such 
 words ever used as ' I absolve you.' Such an idea was wholly foreif^n to the 
 minds of the New Testament writers. 
 
 
 ^ i: 
 
 'ii: 
 
 ■'I!: 
 
27 
 
 " From men to the Gods and from them back to men 
 ** The prayers of the one, and the blessings that then 
 '* Flow again back through these." So, too, of our hosts 
 Of earth-derived demonized go-between ghosts. -. 
 
 Yet of Christians Paul says, "there is one God and oue 
 Mediator between them, Christ Jesus" alone — • 
 Just M muny oj each — one God and one Lord, 
 With which Holy Writ's all in fullest accord ; 
 Not a rabble of Gc is high, low, yea so small. 
 That 'tis hardly worth nammg them Godships at all. 
 E'en the Dii Majores, yea Zeus the sublime 
 And his co-partner brothers their birth had in time. 
 Once they were not, then were, and were, so. Daemons too, 
 Who in our small sun-circling planet once grew. 
 
 But now the blest Mary (yea, and Peter and Paul,) 
 Gets a worship that's due to the Father''' of all. 
 '* Les autels de E'Eglise de Lourdes soDt les tous 
 Dedies," were informed, ** a la bonne mere de Dieu." 
 A hysterical peasant girl, wholly untaught. 
 Through thinking on Mary with feelings o'erwrought, 
 Sees and hears sights and sounds in the vacuous air. 
 While " those who are with her see or hear nothing there." 
 
 " The immaculate conception of Mary," the Queen 
 Of Heaven, by Pope Pius not long since had been 
 Decreed, to the joy of the young pious girl 
 Ecstatic for Mary, dear Mary, the Pearl ■{, 
 
 Of Heaven, the star that outshines aU the rest, < . 
 
 The sweet mother-heart that takes every request 
 To the son whom she nursed upon earth and caressed, 
 And on his soft baby- mouth lovingly pressed 
 Her pure virgin lips, as with eyes of a dove 
 She hung o'er her child with the yearnings of love. 
 
 ** Dear Lady, sweet Lady, would I might behold 
 *• Thee clad in white raiment with rubies and gold 
 •* And a crown on thy head I " 
 
 •• But, oh, what do I see ? 
 •' 'Tis the virgin herself ! What ! Appearing to me ! 
 ** And how sweet is that voice ! Oh yes, I obey ! 
 ** And will what thou commandest, to others convey. 
 
 *St. Polycarp (2nd century) writes thus : ** We love the martyrs, but we 
 worship the Son of God. It is impossible for us to worship any other. *^ No 
 Mary worship for him or for the early church. It was not then invented. But 
 Gregory XVI in his Encyclical, in his puiyer for prosperity, pronounces the 
 "Virgin Mary the greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope" ; and Pius 
 IX, in the decree of December, 1854, urges " all Catholics to invoke and pray to 
 the most blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God. " Quantum mutatus. 
 
28 
 
 ** Oh Worshipful Maiy, that thou should'st choose me, 
 
 *' So am I for ever thy true devotee." 
 
 And so clear was it all that if ever a doubt 
 
 "Was thrust in on her soul, it was soon put to rout. 
 
 Yes, she simply declared what the brain-eye beheld, 
 For the vision internal (externalized) held 
 The soul in its thrall. Hence the tenuous air 
 To others, to her was this vision so fair. 
 
 'Tis a thing oft results from disease of the brain, 
 But which happens, too, ^raetimes to minds wholly sane, 
 
 Or '• she fibs " (this the Nuns saidy while Priests said the same) ; 
 *' Or she's touched in the head " ; the whole thing looked so lame. 
 
 But with miracles soon— faith cures have their day — 
 And if people get cured what can any one say. 
 Hence the Nuns, who had said 'twas a craze or a lie, 
 Now believe it a miracle sent from on high. 
 And, mid the hot zeal of their fellows, get whirled 
 Along by the full rushing tides of theii world. 
 'Tis the Virgin that does all, they cry ; for our need 
 Are these miracles wrought. 
 
 But, th^n, people whose creed 
 Is i^tf o/)j9osf*<« tt7/io% here likewise succeed. ' '.I.V 
 
 Are these miracles better attested than those 
 Where the bones of the Jansenist Abbe repose, • '^ • ^ ' 
 Abbe Paris ; yet by Ultramontanes denied. 
 Since the Jansenist with their own dogmas collide ; 
 For how could they harbour such thought in their breast, 
 As that God could so honour a Galilean Priest. 
 
 Some Protestants likewise are fain to declare, 
 That they effect cures as their answer to prayer. 
 But physicians inform us that those who conceive 
 Themselves paralyzed so that they cannot believe 
 That their legs they could move, have been ordered to rise 
 And walk, whicb they've dene to their own great surprise. 
 Such the potence of mind over body that they, 
 By the voice of authority startled, obey. 
 Faith-cures are true cures the world over, but why 
 Not renew a lost limb or restore a lost eye ? 
 Why confine them to cases equivocal, where 
 Pure psychical laws may suffice for repair ? 
 And seek they a cause supernatural, when 
 Cures have been so effected again and again. 
 
 But we're strangely built creatures. In a case we deem true. 
 And, so, would persuade men, we, pour I'amour de Dieu, 
 Oft exaggerate, colour, half-lie, or still worse, 
 
29 
 
 iYet in some way the cause helps to hreak the remorse. 
 Subconsciously, consciously, somehow, we find 
 Such thinkings as these having place in the mind. 
 
 Were she now to declare the whole thing was a sham, 
 (Supposing she thought it) she must herself damn < 
 In public opinion, to find, to her cost, 
 That the ruin dealt others on her own head fell most. 
 For they'd curse and maltreat her and call her a cheat. 
 Who brought heretic scorn on them and their sweet 
 Blessed Mary of Lourdes, Queen of Heaven, the high 
 Holy *• Mother of God," by her terrible lie. 
 
 Hence, the thing must its course take, 'twill raise Mary's 
 And, whatever myself be, 'twill add to her fame, [name ! 
 
 And the Priest will forgive when hie pardon I claim. 
 
 A certain course taken, a fib once proclaimed. 
 If we're not over- honest, has to be maintained ; 
 Then the pious fraud feeling — Mary's honor at stake — 
 And who would not a fib tell for dear Mary's sake ? 
 
 And how could she go back, and, so, face the shame, 
 Whereas she has now a high place and gre^t ^ame, 
 And now that with such blest effect the thing's done. 
 She may only proceed in the course she'd begun. 
 Then, this village has grown to a wonderful place, 
 Since the pilgrims crowd in at a cantering pace. 
 And the townsmen well know that to make two ends meet, 
 Or 1 )Ad prosperous lives — and prosperity 's sweet — 
 This thing must live on, for were it to break down 
 What then would become of this much favoured town ? 
 
 But this girl may have been very purity's queen, 
 But have had the delusion — such cases have been — 
 Of seeing what noboby irith her had seen. 
 And of hearing as well ; for this, too, is averred, 
 Of hearing what nobody with her had heard. *• 
 
 Poor ignorant maiden, who lacked the soul-force , 
 
 The thing from the thought in the mind to divorce. 
 Now 'tis owing to waves of the air that we hear. 
 And to waves in the ether, we see ; and 'tis sheer 
 Against all experience, that, to her sole ear. 
 The air undulations, that circling break 
 On ears all around, in her sole case should take 
 A waveless straight line, and in her brain awake 
 The sensations of sight and of sound ; yet no wave 
 Strike any one with her, deaf and blind as the grave. 
 But the senses internal were what saw and heard. 
 Unless, falsely she stated what had not occurred. 
 
.♦-r. 
 
 80 
 
 Bat Mary is now the great Goddess of Lourdes, i 
 
 And " mother of God," and her worship assured. 
 
 Now though '* blessed " was she who to Jesus gave birth, 
 So the scriptures declare ; yet such ties of the earthy 
 What are they ? What their value, when the soul's proper worth 
 Is the matter at issue ? Christ showed this, when one 
 Cried out m the crowd, '* blessed she who hath won 
 Such favour of Heaven, as to bear thee and give 
 Her breast to thy lips." 
 
 But ** those who believe 
 God's words and observe them," said (Jhrist, ♦' rather, they 
 Are blessed children of God ; for all who obey 
 The will of my father are my brethren all." 
 •• Who," said Christ, *' Is my mother ?" When this we recall, 
 How strangely discordant with that said before — 
 ** The mother of God," whom all Romans adore. 
 Yea, '* Who is my mother ?" '* My mother is she 
 Who obeys my commands whosoever she be.'"^' 
 
 For the human affection blind, clinging, that binds 
 The child to the parent, in Christ never blinds 
 The soulin its higher conditions ef love ' i 
 
 Of the beautiful good, whi«h so rises above ' • • 
 
 Mere earthly affection. That beauty of soul, . 
 The sinking of self in the good of the whole. 
 Is the pole-star that guides him ; and hence the purged eye 
 Fails not in its judgment of life to descry 
 The one measure of right without favor. Hence "he 
 Who my father's will does is a mother to me." 
 
 Which holds, then, the orthodox doctrine ? He who 
 Accepts the old faith, or the new Romish view, 
 This doctrine of Mary, whose aegis they boast. 
 This "Mother of God" with the demigod host 
 Of saint mediators — the old Pagan creed 
 Jn which the poor, weak creature-heart in its need 
 Falls back on its Daemons : As Plato maintains 
 " That the good man, life ended, high honour attains 
 •* Becoming a Daemon, a demigod saint, I 
 
 *• A go-between medium the Gods to acquaint 
 ** With men's supplications, and the answer return 
 ** To men, that the will of the Gods they may learn." 
 
 This the doctrine of Dcemons, this Paganized creed 
 Of the church plunged in darkness, refusing to heed 
 The plain teaching of Paul. What ! ' Could he but behold 
 
 •M*tthew XII, 47, 50. 
 
81 
 
 This Church half-recast in the old Pagac mould I 
 How would he not wonder and weep at the sight 
 Of his morning of hope changed to sorrowful night. 
 
 * Can this be the church which Christ founded, which I 
 ' Sought to pilot in life, but now stranded and dry, 
 
 ' Her timbers all gaping, her sails all in rags, 
 
 * While, most painful, all round are heard shamfuUest brags 
 
 * Of her great sailicg powers and her future career, 
 
 ' How through quicksands and rocks her bold captain can steer, 
 
 * But though skilful her captain and steady her crew, 
 
 * With her crazy old hull what can seamanship do ?* 
 
 But oh, 'tis the creed putting gags on the mind 
 Which the souls of free men so unbearable find, 
 Which tells us all faith but the Pope's is a sham, 
 And that when he has power, as of old, he will cram 
 Down our throats his strange creed by a methud not new, 
 A method which famous Inquisitors knew, ^^ 
 But, alas, from the ingrates T/ho terrified shook. 
 They got but scant thanks for the pains which they took. 
 
 But they were cocksure* they infallibly knew 
 The full council of God, while this heretic crew 
 Must be bent to the faith. Hence they must use the birch, 
 And, if that fails, the stake, *5 in behalf of the church ; 
 They must '* pull up the tares," ere they scatter their seed, 
 From the garden of God root out every weed. , ..- ^ .• • 
 Thus the rack and the stake take the place of the force / t 
 Of moral persuasion and reason — the course > , • • 
 
 Which Christ had pursued. 
 
 '* To his own Lord," says Paul, .; ; 
 
 (Not to weak human judgment) •' we stand or we fall." t // 
 
 Now my quarrel with Popery chiefly is this, 
 Not with the rehgion, for each should choose his, /; > - 
 
 'Cardinal Sanseverina described the terrible night of St. Bartholomew, in 
 
 which the Protestants of France were murdered wholesale, as "a splendid night 
 
 Jot Christ." Visari's pictures of the St. Bartholemew on the walls of the Vatican 
 
 are an illustration of the pronunciamento of the late Pope's '* Syllabus" that 
 
 " religious toleration is a damnable error." 
 
 And when, as Mr. Gladstone writes, the Pope's Syllabus and Encyclicals refuse 
 U8 *• in fearfully energetic epithets," " liberty of speech," *' of conscience," *' of 
 worship," and use such frightful denunciations against all those who say that the 
 church may not employ FORCE, I fear for the future. 
 
 I once asked a very able man, on good terms with Catholics, how the world, in 
 this deadlock of things, was to be delivered. His reply was, I can see my way 
 out of it only in the hope that in the general diffusion of an enlightened public 
 opinion, the Catholic may gradually become emancipated from these antisocial 
 and slavish doctrines, and, so, insensibly melt into rhe citizen. I do not say that 
 they were his very words, but in substance they wero so. 
 
As his judgment directs ; but that my equal right 
 . To choose mino is refused, as though black could look white 
 By an effort of will ; and therefore that I 
 Must take as a truth what to me is a lie^ 
 And in my new faith my first step hi to break 
 With conscience ; and manhood and freedom forsake. 
 If not, to be punished, yea even with death, 
 For frankly declaring the soul's honest faith, 
 Which justly no one to believe is compelled,*-- 
 But only when by the soul's self truly held. 
 
 But yet, spite of this, Rome was doing such deeds 
 As are the bad fruits of men's horrible creeds. 
 But now with clipped wings she sits brooding and dreams 
 Of a good time to come, which the present redeems, 
 But which means no good time to me and to you, 
 And which, if not true to ourselves, may come true, 
 For of these things Rome takes such a practical view. 
 For though all speculation in one special mood. 
 Yet, unlike Kant's or Spencer's, her's ends oft in blood. 
 For while their' s we may take or reject as the weight : 
 Falls to this side or that, yet no horrible fate 
 Awaits the decision, which, though right or wrong, tf ./ 
 May be honestly reached by the mind, weak or strong. • ' 
 But to her, she avers, all decisions belong. - .*'.; 
 
 And woe to those who (for she claims to this hour 
 All the claims of the past), should she yet gain the power 
 Of ** vis infere7ida,'' that argument old ' 
 
 Which simplifies things so ; for who can behold. 
 In fancy, the rack or the slow-creeping flame 
 Without tremblingly feeling how feeble and lame * 
 
 Is this poor human will oft, although for truth's sake. 
 Or what seems to them such, men will face e'en the stake. 
 
 * In the famous Encyclicals and syllabus of the late Pope all are condemned 
 "who hold that the Roman Pontiffs (in the past) and Ecumenical Councils ex- 
 ceeded the limits of their power when they put kingdoms under interdicts and 
 deposed kings." 
 
 Again, writes Mr. Gladstone, "the Vatican Decrees do, in the strictest sense, 
 establish for the Pope a supreme command over loyalty and civil duty." And 
 things may be coming to this, that "in a moiety of the whole Christian family 
 nothing shall remain but an Asian Monarchy — nothing but one giddy height of 
 despotism and one dead level of religious subserviency." ^ 
 
 Again, Rome sets up "a rivai law against the staie in the State's own domain." '^ 
 
 "Pius IX. declared null and void absolutely all the Acts of the Government of ^1 
 Predmont." — Gladstone. 
 
 .- 1. 
 
 1! 
 
 8 
 
 y 
 
88 
 
 But say they •* Thou art Peter,''* etc., and this 
 All argument closes, for thiis the Pope is 
 The arbiter sola of the creed of maukind, 
 Which is hence best accepted by going it blind, 
 Not asking what Christ meant, but taking the word 
 Of another therefor, as the voice of their Lord. 
 Thee Peter, inspired one, said Christ, I endue 
 With the power to proclaim to both Gentile and Jew 
 The Kingdom of Heaven when opened to all. 
 Who, through /niV/i in true penitence, on my name call. 
 Thee too, by my spirit inspired, I entrust 
 With the making those rules for men's guidance, which must 
 Bind on earth, siace the sanction of Heaven they've gained. 
 And annexed the conditions by which 'tis ordained, 
 That sins he remitted, or, refused, he retained. 
 Thou art Petros, a stone, and on this Petra, 
 This ** rock " of the faith, thy avowal, I lay 
 My Church's foundation, nor shall Hades hold, 
 But the grave shall surrender in numbers untold, 
 My saints, when the cold brazen gates I unbar 
 And summon my loved ones from near and from far. 
 
 But, say, Peter the rock was, because so possessed 
 Of the soul of this doctrine he just had confessed, 
 Insouled m his soul, as the great basal fact f ' 
 
 Underlying all else, to be held aye intact — 
 The foundation in him so einhodied that what 
 He taught was a part of himself — Christ inwrought — 
 And which he proclaimed — this rock -doctrine so new 
 To the poor outcast Gentile no less than the Jew. 
 But, if this be the case, can any one say 
 Why Christ changed the word— from •' Petros " to *' Petra. "f 
 To Petra, a feminine noun with so clear »* 
 A meaning of rock ; as therein doth appear, 
 
 • *' Hiou art Peter," therefore a man that is not Peter, a man that lives a thou- 
 sand years after, be he a good or an utterly depraved man, shall have authority to 
 lay down the laws for the guidance of this world and for man's destmy in the 
 next, and to enforce them with *' armed forces." And all this, thougii not one 
 word is uttered (although in a matter of such transceudant importance we were 
 surely entitled to expect it) to show that the power, whatever it was, which was 
 bestowed upon Peter, was to be a ptrtetual heirloom of every future bishop of 
 Rome, be he a good or a bad man, formally elected or thrust into his chair by 
 vile women and wicked men, and though Rome in the whole matter is simply 
 ignored. Why, for all this there is not a single scrap of evidence. It is pure 
 whole-cloth assumption — a mighty pyramid on its apex — the veriest dream of 
 theological castle-builders ! 
 
 t ** Petros a piece of a rock,, a stone, and thus distinguished from Petra. There 
 is no example in a good author of Petra in the signification of Petros for a single 
 stone." Sc write our able lexicographers Liddell and Scott 
 
/ 
 
 84 
 
 Where the man that was wise bnilt his house on a rock, 
 Not on Potros, but Petra, which withstood all the shock 
 Of the winds and the floods, because built on a rock — 
 The Petrut the sublying rock-bed alone 
 On which we may build, not on Petros, a stone. 
 
 But could Petros be Petra, 'twould be not in a sense 
 That any comparison makes an offence 
 To Christ, when, by contrast, it is that we see 
 The difference infinite — one of kind, not degree — 
 The one built upori ; and the one on it built. 
 The one guilty : the one the remover of guilt. 
 Still J say^ Peter the rock was, how that can ajfect 
 The question at issue I cannot detect. 
 For the Pope is not Peter, long turned into earth, 
 And no word of successors of such kind by birth, 
 Or of such successions of Rocks yet to be - 
 
 Is recorded of any Christ-sanctioned trustee. 
 Yet where powers so tremendous are claimed, the proofs there 
 Should be clear as the daylight respecting the heir 
 .To this fearful claimed power of the priest to remit. 
 To bind or to loose, as to him it seems fit. 
 To the debtor his sin ; yei the records, alas. 
 No word of such heir have, and that soul must be crass, 
 Which sees not the blank chasm of the ages, with naught 
 But negation and trifling and sophistry fraught. 
 With vain efforts to bridge which men have worn out their lives 
 But the chasm is too deep and too wide, and the gyves 
 Of necessity stay them ; for Peter is not 
 The Rock, but •' a stone " in the building inwrought ; * . 
 The Petra-foundation sub- basal of all. 
 For '*no oilier foundation'' than this, as St. Paul 
 Has so strongly affirmed, can ever be laid, 
 Though, in a changed sense, they who first obeyed * ■ / 
 The mission of Jesus may truly be said 
 To be, too, the foundation — the first converts made — 
 The first stones in a building-to-bear- the- whole-shock 
 Of the storms of all time, and hence built on a rock. 
 If the Pope Universal Priest-sovereignty claims 
 He thereby, by another Pope's dictum, proclaims 
 Himself the forerunner of Antichrist. So 
 The Great Gregory scoffs at the claims of Leo.* 
 
 •Pope Gregory the Great, writes thus : •' I say that whoever calls himself 
 Universal Priest, or desires to be called so in hi? pride, foreruns AmiChrist" 
 The early fathers of the Church — Origen, Augustine, Jerome, &c., even when 
 commenting on " Thou art Peter," say not a word about the Pope's supremacy. 
 
86 
 
 But to Peter the honor especial was given 
 To open to all men the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 To the Jew and the OentiU. ^Accordingly he 
 Was the first to declare salvation the free 
 Gift of Heaven to all, on *' repentance and faith," 
 By which to escape the due wage — sin and death. 
 
 Such The Rock and remission I hut who wholly sane, 
 Fully seized of the case, could the thought entertain 
 Of sins pardoned by man, unconditioned by what 
 /• the state of the soul, if repentant or not. 
 But if he's repentant ; that is, toward sin 
 And God and his fellows a changed man within 
 To the core of his being ; and, so, pardoned receives 
 The poor prodigal's welcome by him who relieves 
 The soul of its burden of sin ; for his child 
 Once " lost is now found," and since thus reconciled, 
 Is secure in the fold, through the chastening rod 
 Of the all-merciful sire — but if pardoned by God, 
 What the need of the priest, for how can it add ' * 
 
 To the mercy already vouchsafed him by God. 
 Though to pardon the pardoned is scarce a great feat • 
 To pardon the unpardoned is simply a cheat ; '^ .• 
 
 If not in intention, at least so in fact. 
 For it leaves thus the soul of the sinner intact. 
 
 But why, if a Priest possess power to remit 
 Men's sins, do we nowhere throughout Holy Writ 
 Find *' Confessionals " set up here, there, everywhere 
 Where men might be *' shrived," but we find them nowhere. 
 It is true we are told each to each to confess 
 The wrongs we have done, no more making them less, 
 Than denying them wholly, but, Christianly strong, 
 Acknowledging frankly where we have done wrong. 
 Thus half-truths ill-conceived may change to whole Hes 
 By a dexterous twist, and unless we surprise 
 The false logic that lurks in the tangles of speech. 
 We may the plain meaning fail wholly to reach. 
 
 Or Christ may refer to those scandals in which 
 With a view to the purity of his loved church, 
 The impenitent soul must be shut out from grace, 
 But pardoned again, when resolved to retrace 
 His steps and return, and so the church here, 
 To Christ's plain command lending reverent ea , 
 Shuts him out or f jrgives ; but 'tis in a case 
 Of plain wrong unrepented excluding from grace ; 
 
 •The Jew and the Gentile constituting the whole world. 
 
86 
 
 But whom when repentant the church must forgive, 
 
 And tnto the fold their strayed brother receive. 
 
 Thus, whose sins ye remit, are remitted if he* 
 
 Whose sins ye remit a true penitant be : 
 
 But repentance involves the surrender, a whole 
 
 Submission, to God of the penitant soul. 
 
 But the sense of the whole is as clear as the day 
 
 And no soul that is honest can miss the sure way. 
 
 Though dark spots on his face by our lenses we find, 
 
 Yet the sun with his brightness illumines mankind. 
 
 But men's sins to retain is a thought which who can 
 Entertain, who has aught like the soul of a man. 
 
 But if anyone ever possessed such a power — 
 Inconceivable though — there's no proof of such dower — 
 No shadow of proof — fixed by Heaven to be 
 A perpetual kind of priest -property. 
 So tremendous a power ! And yet not a word 
 Or hint of transmission looks too wildly absurd. 
 To the Priests too a dower, when vainly we search 
 For a priest-class apart] from the whole Christian church. 
 But if priests can forgive sins ; then if we recall 
 Whal^ Peter has said, Christians can one and all. 
 As Christ's priests, forgive sins ; and far better so 
 Than the doctrine of Trent, that a priest, himself though 
 **/n mortal sin,'* may this great blessing bestow. 
 Still from the great '* priesthood " good men understood 
 To be with some faculties special endued 
 To rule and to teach, are selected ; while they, 
 From whom they're selected are bound to obey. 
 But a spirit fault-finding, contentious is not 
 A spirit becoming a Christian, begot 
 In the likeness of Christ. Nor may those in command 
 Of the soldiers of Christ rule their charge with high hand. 
 But teachers and taught should in harmony act, 
 And try, so, the great world outside to attract. 
 
 •Hennas, an esteemed writer of the 2nd century, and a brother of the Bishop 
 of Rome, writes, "who was able to forgive sins ? This is His [God's] alone pre- 
 rogative ; for who remits sin but God only." Can any point to a single instance 
 in the writings of Christians of the first or secend centuries of any one claiming 
 the Popish asserted right to forgive sins. I know not of any. 
 
 tSt. Peter, in his epistle to many churches scattered throughout the east, 
 writes thus ; " Ye are a holy priesthood^" and again, •' Ye are a royal priest- 
 hood" (1 Pet. II : 5, 9). And, as being priests, they offer up sacrifices— the sac- 
 rifices of "praise" and "well-doing." (Heb. xiii : 15, 16; 1 Pet. ii : 5). And, 
 apart from these, there is no other sacrifice and no other priest on earth. (Heb. 
 X: 12-18). All christians are priests. Sacerdotalism antagonises the priesthood 
 of christians. 
 
87 
 
 Bui there are priest-teachers and rulers, and those 
 To be goverued and taught, as the scripture rule shows-^ 
 Priests ruling and teaching ; priests governed and taught, — 
 And offering sacrifice such as priests aught, 
 The hostia no longer, but that which always 
 The christian should offer, *' well-doing and praise,'* 
 But though themselves priests they are bound to obey 
 The governing priests so appointed ; for they 
 Watch for their soul's good, as they that must give 
 Account to their Lord. Hence we may not them grieve 
 By misjudging, or self will, or want of that which 
 Is the sweetener of life and cement of the churcli. 
 That charity which is so slow to perceive 
 The failings of others, but can all good believe. 
 
 Still there is no such thing as a priesthood at all, 
 As in essence distinct from the priesthood of all*, 
 And every Christian a priest is as such, 
 And as every other a priest is as much. 
 
 To the clause of forgiveness of sinse we return 
 With a view the precedent conditions to learn — 
 Then let us, to apprehend fully, recall 
 The solemn words spoken, the occasion, and all. 
 
 The disciples assembled with shut doors, from fear, 
 Christ addressed, soon to leave them, with words of good cheer : 
 '• Peace to you " (et cetera) then " breathed on them " and said 
 •• The Holy Ghost receive ye " — by God's spirit thus led, 
 " Whose sins ye forgive," and so on, but I ask — 
 For a Jesuit even a Herculean task — 
 Alexander the Sixth ! did Christ him too endue 
 With the Spirit of God, and those other Popes, who, -~ ' 
 
 •' Though monsters of vice, had been *• into the chair 
 '• Of Peter intruded, through women who were 
 " Abandoned and sordid/" " False Popes there were," too 
 So Baronius writes, though a Catholic true. 
 Had these all or any the power to retain 
 Or forgive mortal's sins ? But is it not plain 
 That sins as remitted by God, not by man, 
 Stands out in relief in our whole gospel plan. 
 
 To disciples said Christ, on you I bestow 
 The Spirit of God to instruct you, that so 
 
 *St. Augustine writes, thus : " What have I to do with men that they should 
 hear my confession as though they could heal my disease ; " while St. Thoiiias 
 Acquinas, Cardinal Cajctan, etc., do not allow that auricular confession was con- 
 stituted by Christ. St. Chrysostom too says, "I do not constrain you to dis- 
 cover your sins to men. Unclasp thy conscience before God and show thy 
 wounds to him." 
 
88 
 
 Whose sins ye forgive be forgiven ; but how 
 
 Save by thimble-rig logic, it follows that now, 
 
 Eighteen centuries after, some man hath the same 
 
 Special power to forgive. But how utterly lame 
 
 In a plain court of law would such logic appear ! 
 
 'T would be laughed out of court, for what judge would long hear. 
 
 Whole volumes of rigmarole. 
 
 JUDGE. 
 
 ■ -■'''■■','■'''.- 
 
 Whereas the proofs clear, 
 The proofs, 'tis we*d get at ! 
 
 -" ~ ROM. "^ . 
 
 But the proofs are nowhere. 
 If the proofs 'tis you want you must look, judge, elsewhere. 
 The Pope is infallible *7 : for this take his word. 
 To ask, then, for proofs 'tis too wholly absurd. 
 
 But the thing, as 1 said, is a blunder all through, 
 For the Hiereus element stealthily grew, 
 But the Priests as distinct from his brothers — the Church — 
 Is a dogma for which with vain efforts we search 
 'Moijgst New Testament writers ; for the church as a whole 
 Are the *' Priesthood" of God, ** holy," "royal,"— the sole 
 Priests of God and of Christ, of co-equal degree. 
 Whatever on earth, as officials, they be. 
 From these co-equal priests, for fitness therefor 
 One was chosen to rule md was named Presbyter, 
 Or Bishop (overseer), b. , as time rolled along. 
 To Priest Presbyter changed, then came in much that's wrong, 
 For a priest (Hiereus or Sacerdos) was one 
 Who a sacrifice offered ; but a Presbyter, none. 
 Save as one of the Church bound to offer always 
 The " sacrifice due of well-doing and praise." 
 Now this Priest segregated, in process of time, 
 Game to be sole dispenser of pardon for crime 
 Of whatever degree ; and yet such a thought 
 In the writings of Paul or of Peter is sought. 
 Or their practice, in vain ; for all other Priests, 
 But the Church one and all,, have long totally ceased^ 
 
 But the Pope to this doctrine will scarcely agree. 
 And the Pope is infallible, by the decree 
 Of the Vatican Council decided to be. 
 But, oh, what a Council, discordancy-voiced I 
 Some wished the thing trimmed, some would give it a hoist, 
 Some argued against it, while others withdrew. 
 But the Pope was persistent ; the Jesuits, too. 
 
1 
 
 89 
 
 So 'twas passed, for majorities rule everywhere ; 
 
 Just as iu our own parliaments, so was it there. 
 
 The protesters were many, but on the Pope's side 
 
 It must be confessed, if we're bound to decide 
 
 A question like this by heads, not by brains 
 
 And exalted position, His Holiness gains 
 
 The victory here ; but call it not 9, free 
 
 Church Council, where men were obliged to agree 
 
 (You may Troliope consult, page 808,) 
 
 Or gain the ill-will of the Pope or those who 
 
 Had resolved from the first to carry it through. 
 
 Hence sneers, interruptions,"' oppression, constraint 
 
 Were the weapons used 'against those who would not attaint 
 
 Their conscience by doing the thing they deemed wrong, 
 
 When the reasons adduced were not equally strong ; 
 
 And so to this wonderful dogma they now. 
 
 Though by such\ methods carried, have only to bow. 
 
 Still a man is not lost through his wrongness qI creed 
 Or saved by his rightness. Yet, all men have need 
 To look at things straightly, and keep the soul so 
 That wherever truth leads him he's willing to go. 
 This is the condition of soul of the man. 
 Whom all they must approve of who stand in the van 
 Of the world's best thinking. And let us each stand # 
 Upon the firm basis of things at first hand, 
 And not in the mud carried down through the drains 
 Of traditional sweepings of other men's brains — 
 Good, indifferent, bad, as they happen to be — 
 Deductions and guessing%t to you and to me 
 As free as to them, while, in the vast field 
 
 * (i 
 
 No more cunning plot," writes Gladstone, " was ever devised again^c the 
 intelligence, the freedom, the happiness and virtue of mankind than Roma lism." 
 And Lafayette, though himself a Catholic, said : "If the liberties of the Ameri- 
 can people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Roman Clergy." 
 St. Thomas Acquinas, the great Romish Doctor, laid it down deliberately as a 
 fixed fundamental principle that '* heretics may be not only excommunicated, 
 but killed." Accordingly, we read in the Bandana Catholica (Catholic Banner) 
 of Spain (July 29, 1883), '* ivhat a day of pleasure thfit mil hejor us, when we see 
 Freemasons, Spiritualists, Freethinkers and Anticlericals writhing in the flames 
 of the Inquisition." A nice look out that ! 
 
 tThe Pope told Cardinal Gibbons, he says, when in Rome, fhat he disliked 
 anathemas, or attempting harsh or severe measures towards any one, but desired 
 to appeal to . . . the heart of mankind " ; yet this same Leo XIII, in his 
 Encyclical writes of "the ISJasonic sects" thus : " Possessed hy the spirit of Satan^ 
 whose instrument they are, they burn like him with a deadly and implacable 
 hatred of Jesus Christ and his work, and they endeavour by all means to over- 
 throw and fetter it." Freemasons had better look out, for if ever his J^oUuess' 
 power is equal to his will, woe to them and all of us. 
 
40 
 
 Of experience and knowledge, to us thej must yield. 
 
 The Luther Reform was but the revolt 
 Of the outgremiig mind, and the Lutheran bolt 
 Its effect had in this : hence it fired the whole train 
 Which blazed up responsive ; and Leo in vain, 
 Mistaking his man, £red small Vatican shot, 
 Which did little hurt, while the battle waxed hot 
 And hotter with time. Yet the Lutheran end 
 Was only to this, the old ways to defend — 
 The old Christianity hut to restore 
 From abuse and tradition — this, this, and no more. 
 Crusted o'er with the' accretions of time in those dense, 
 Long ages precedent of darkness ; the sense 
 Of the teachings of Christ muffled up, set aside. 
 When as Christ said **men slept" with none near them to guide 
 But, in ignorance dense of the Scriptures, they say 
 How could there have been such vast falling away ? 
 But Paul tells us that Jesus could not come again 
 Unless INTERMEDIATE thcTC C|kme the fell reign 
 Of a fearful apostasy,^ yet in the sure 
 March of things in the world to fully mature, 
 That, its seeds to-day working like leaven ^n dough, 
 'T would to a great head of apostasy grow. 
 Btit Tetzel, his drum, and indulgencies broke - |- 
 
 The dread silence at length, and great Luther awoke. 
 *' The Pope shall know all,'' thought Luther, ** and stop 
 This blathering idiot or worse," but the crop, 
 Not how it was gathered, he soon came to know 
 Was what chiefly concerned our old worldling, Leo. 
 
 '• Indulgences here for sins past and to come I ! ! '* 
 Tetzel cries ; and shall Luther stand by as though dumb. 
 While this shamefullest brawler, this vUe, foul-mouthed hound. 
 Loud of tongue, cries his damnable wares all around ( 
 •* As soon as your money clicks, dropped in my box, 
 " The Jailor of Ghostland the strong gates unlocks, 
 " And the poor tortured soul bounds to Heaven ; and, oh, 
 
 •Even in the days of the Apostle Paul the church began to fall away from the 
 Christianity he had taught them. Hence he wrote, " why turn ye back again to 
 the weak and beggarly elements ... I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed 
 on you labour til vain.'' — Gal. ill, 9, 10, 11. And again {2nd Thes. ii, 3 to 11,) 
 " The mystery of lawlessness doth already work," and will go on, he shows 
 there, to ripen in time to d^fearfvl Apostasy. Historic Christianity, then, proves 
 little for Rome, for this terrible foretold apostasy was, of course, to be historic. 
 So that what they call Christianity may be only the heresy of Apostacy, and 
 this can be ascertained only by compartng the teaching of what calls itself the 
 church 'with the teaching of the New Testament. And certainly what the 
 Papal church teaches is very unlike what Paul taughc. Read also Ist Tim. rv. 
 
 v; 
 
" How he thanks the dear friend who has freed him from woe. 
 
 •' Then, oh, with your mother or child in such need, 
 
 ** As sheeted in flame they now cry to be freed ; 
 
 •' Can you grudge them a few silver coins, through your greed 
 
 " To add shillings to shillings. But, oh, what a prize 
 
 •* To them and to you in indulgences lies." 
 
 What cried Peter, indignant, to Magus of old, 
 ** Do ^ u deem that God's gift can be purchased with gold, 
 •' Thy gold perish with thee." And what shamefuUer thought 
 From the veriest slums of the mind ever sought 
 Escape through the lips. But why marvel we, then. 
 At the monstrous beliefs of the lowest of men. 
 
 And is this the outcome — tJie flower and the fruit 
 Of the teaching of Jesus ! So well doth it suit 
 With •* the Bride of the Lamb without blemish or spot" 
 As cleansed by Christ's spirit, by his sufferings bought. 
 This being the doctrine that in scripture is taught. 
 
 But the church it is founded on Peter, the rock 
 And is destined for ever to outlast the shock 
 Of what with her collides, which is broken ; while she 
 Will all tempests outride till time ceases to be. 
 For the powers of the world against her must fail. 
 And ** the gates e'en of Hell prove of smallest avail," 
 For she " sits as a queen and no sorrow shall see," * 
 As she was at the first, ever destined to be. 
 And •' Mary the Mother of God," Heaven's Queen 
 To whom the Church prays, f standing ever between 
 Her son and the Church, wins for it such support 
 That it stands in the world an impregnable fort. 
 Which, whatever men think, in vain they assail, i._: - ■ ■ ■ 
 For nor Devil nor man against it can prevail. ^ ; t . 
 
 But has not the great '* Reformation " prevailed, J 
 
 • Rev. XVIII, 7. 
 
 t**Some persons," writes Epiphanius (4th century) "are mad enough to 
 honor the Virgin as a goddess. Certain woman have transplanted this vanity 
 from Thrace into Arabia. The Virgin Mary is no Goddess. " 
 
 Jin reply to Archbishop Walsh I ask, what had Henry VIII, at one time the 
 friend of the Pope, at another against him, but always the slave of his own 
 brutal passions, to do really with the Reformation except to hinder it, and cer- 
 tainly Luther did not spare him. ''Does Archbishop Walsh know anything at 
 all of English history ? Let me infoJm him that by the Act of the Six Articles, 
 passed late in Henry's life, largely through his own influence, and which remain- 
 ed in force at his death, the following doctrines were established : — 
 
 1. ~ e Real Presence in the Sacrament. 
 
 2. X rivate masses for ^e dead. 
 
 3. Communion of one kind. 
 
 4. Celibacy of the priests. 
 
42 
 
 And has not the Roman church signally failed, 
 
 When millions on millions, through Luther's voice freed, 
 
 Abandoned, and so to this hour do, her creed. 
 
 And has not the Greek Church, which by her side grew 
 
 Been rent from her fold the long ages through. 
 
 But still she's the Catholic Church in their view. 
 
 But choosing one special historical date 
 
 I showed you the Church's then horrible state : 
 
 And again that apostasy had been foretold ' 
 
 As a stage in its future, which time would unfold. 
 
 But Peter the Boman Apostle ! when Paul 
 
 Shows that Peter was not such Apostle at all, 
 
 But that of the Jews, whereas Paul 'twas was he, 
 
 Who, by special commission was set forth to be 
 
 The Gentile, hence Roman, Apostle. But what 
 
 Avails /acf or reason, when the soul hath once got 
 
 A set hard as granite, where prejudice takes 
 
 The place of the judgment, which seldom awakes, 
 
 So sluggish the mind, from the torpor of thought. 
 
 Which squarely believes just tlie thing it is taught. 
 
 Which may be a truth, and it may be a he, 
 
 But which 'tis depends on a throw of the die. 
 
 But that **other foundation than Christ can no man 
 Lay,'* is written in letters of light on the plan ' ' 
 
 Of salvation throughout, which Peter and Paul 
 Declare the one hope of salvation to all. 
 But were Peter the rock, would not Peter supplant 
 Christ the rock, which no Romanist surely would grant. 
 
 But what could be the meaning precisely defined 
 (And not held as loose, nebulous thought in the mind) 
 Of the Church built on Peter ? 
 
 Said Christ, "Who am I?" 
 "The Christ, son of God," was prompt Peter's reply. 
 Of this statement of faith in him what did Christ say I 
 *' Thou art Petros, and (changing the word to Petra) 
 " On this Petra " (not Petro) " this rock I will lay 
 •' The Church's foundation ; nor shall the strong gates 
 •' Of Hades immure her," for death but awaits 
 '• The trumpet of God, when my church shall arise 
 
 5. Auricular confession. 
 
 6. Monastic vows. 
 
 And of these the first was enforced by burning at the stake for J;he first offence, 
 and the others by burning for the second oflfence — the then universally popular 
 and usual way of dealing with "heretics" by Archbish»p Walsh's predecessors. 
 These Six Articles do not look much like Protestantism, with their savage pun- 
 ishments for mere opinions, and, thank God, they are not Protestantism.' 
 
48 
 
 " To tenant untroubled their home in the skies." 
 
 And am I not borne out in what I here show, 
 For Pope Gregory writes " Petra dedit Petro,"* 
 Now here, beyond doubt, by the rock Christ he meant — 
 The Petra that gave him the crown with the intent 
 That Petros bestow it on Rudolph ; and so 
 What thought A« was the Petra and Petros we know. 
 
 Yet hath Petra to Petros relationship fit — 
 •* The Rock " built upon and rock-fragment on it. 
 Or mere movable rock, such as Ajax once hurled, 
 Not the basal rock, P$tra, that »uhlies the world. 
 
 But had the advice to the church by St. Paul 
 Against the observance of days and of all 
 Indifferent things been regarded, its fall 
 Might have been averted. For only conceive 
 An ** InfallabU Pope " sunk to this, to believe 
 The observance of Easter on one special day 
 A matter of such vital moment, that they. 
 Who kept it n t so — whate'er themselves thought — 
 And this in the century after Paul taught — ? • ' • 
 
 Should be cut, excommunicate, off from the rest, 
 And for this be excluded — the whole East from the West, 
 
 On so paltry\ a matter, that Easter be held 
 On the fourteenth of New Moon, 'gainst which they rebelled 
 Who regarded the Sunday that fallowed, the day 
 On which to observe it ; and for this, mere child's play, 
 They parted as foes, going each his own way. 
 
 And thus on a matter indifferent quite, 
 On what day of the month to observe it was right, 
 Half Christendom stood 'gainst the other arrayed ; 
 And, so, can we wonder that Paul was '• afraid " 
 When he saw that the leaven of mischief that lurks 
 In a rite, in itself of indifference, works 
 Fatal evils when stamped with importance ; for so 
 From tiny beginnings great heresies grow. 
 Thus, from his high vantage of pnnciples viewed, 
 Paul saw that his teaching was ill-understood ; 
 For though he worked hard that his people might learn 
 True freedom of soul, yet he found they would turn — 
 For the poor formal soul in the outward delights — 
 To feed, soul-enslaved, on the dry husks of rites. 
 
 * The full hexameter is this : "Petra dedit Petro, Petros deadema Rudolpho. 
 The rock gave the crown to Peter, Peter to Rudolph. 
 
 tGal. IV, 2 : " You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am 
 afraid for you lest I have bestowed on you labor in vain." 
 
r 
 
 44 
 
 Wher. Goethe, the all -sided, looked back in old age 
 And, with wisdom hived up, re-perused our life's page, 
 To principles tracing the effects that thence flow, 
 And deducing from principles those that must grow 
 Thereupon, as a tree bears fruit bitter or sweet. 
 And is known by its fruit, and its fruit known by it — 
 He held highly prized the rich blessings the world 
 Had won since the Protestant flag was unfurled. 
 For free speech was not pos?ible under a flag, 
 Where the Priest, as he willed it, could put on the gag, 
 With his Index, and all his machiner^^ wrought 
 With cunningest skill, to crush out honest thought. 
 He felt that mankind whom the Tetzels had fleeced, 
 But Luther had wrenched from the grip of the Priest, 
 Were entitled to speak their own thoughts without fear 
 Of dungeon, or rack,* or the merciless spear 
 Or sword of crusader, or of the dread stake. 
 With the option their conscience or life to forsake, 
 He therefore decided — how could he do less — 
 That the Protestant principle tended to bless ;\ '^ 
 Yea, that full toleration was simply a right. 
 To which all are entitled as to the blest light, - ; •■ 
 
 Which shines equal for all. Then, oh, let us learn 
 To prize this rich blessing, and shuddering turn '- 
 
 From whatever might slip in, the slightest, to hurt *. 
 
 Fair freedom-for-all, but be on the alert * • 
 
 The smallest aside to detect from the course 
 Which our duty to right and sound judgment enforce. 
 
 But the Pope to bend all minds to his claims the right, 
 And yet the *Henth age'' I he sole-ruled was the night, 
 The " dark,'' ** leaden " age of the world, when despair 
 Seemed fast settling down on men's minds ei^erywhere 
 They enjoyed his " Home Rule." 'Twas, as writ on the page 
 Of the Komish historian, a terrible age. 
 In its fogland of steammg, memphitic, close air 
 Men's minds became mildewed, and ignorance rare 
 Imbruted their natures ; for men fell behind. 
 By whole leagues, the stage reached, in the sphere of the mind, 
 
 * The rack how dreaded ! But it was said of it on one occasion that '* it was 
 used with all the tenderness which the nature of the instrument would allow." 
 
 t Unlike so many scientists who regard the different beliefs of christians, as 
 matters too small for their high consideratioM, Professor Huxley writes, " The 
 only immediate and ready antidote io the poison tha/, has been mixed up toith 
 chriatianityj to the intoxication and delusion of mai«kind, lies in copious draughts 
 from the undejiled npring of the Bible itself. " 
 
 tSo writes Cardinal Baronius — an " iron," '* levAeUf' " dark age." 
 
45 
 
 As compared, class for class, in the old Grecian world, 
 
 Ere the flag of the faith taught by Christ was unfurled. 
 
 'Twas an " iron,'' a *' leaden,'' " dark" age all in one, 
 
 As Baronius tells us, to such a state grown 
 
 Of sin, filth, and folly, that scarce can he find 
 
 Words oj adequate strength to the shame in his mind. 
 
 'Tis not I who wrote this ; blame not me ; 'Tis the pen 
 
 Of a Catholic Cardinal writes it ; but then 
 
 You must not blame him ; for how could he indite 
 
 Save what lay in the archives in plain black and white. 
 
 Would you have him declare what he knew he knew not — 
 
 That the building was sound to the core, when dry-rot 
 
 Was eating its timbers away ; though he grieved 
 
 To write what he gladly would have disbelieved. 
 
 What a picture we've here of the church gone astray. 
 
 As foretold by St. Paul, what a falling away 
 
 From the primitive church while under the sway 
 
 Of its first christian teachers. 
 
 PAP. 
 
 It could not fall away. 
 
 PBO. 
 
 Yet historians in colours the darkest portray 
 
 Its horrible state. Why will Romans not read 
 
 Their own histories and learn how deep was the need 
 
 Of the great •' Reformation " which Luther at last 
 
 Attempted and made, as his clarion blast 
 
 Drew myriads to him, the brave iconoclast. .. ,. 
 
 But *' the falling away " referred to above 
 
 Was such iu its fearfulness as to disprove 
 
 The averment of Rome, that her church could not fall, 
 
 For 'tis proved by stern facts as foretold by St. Paul. 
 
 Who e'en tells us some marks by which to he known 
 
 Which to-day on its face are so palpably shown. 
 
 Three Popes at one time, and what they of each other 
 Spake, was hardly the language of brother towards brother ; 
 While two popes and two councils, on the Billingsgate level. 
 Pronounce each the other the church of the Devil. 
 *• L'infame Theodora," passion's slave, void of fear 
 Of God's bolt, John the 10th ♦* pour Pape fit elire."* 
 And oh, what a Pope, what an era, what crime ! 
 Then Rome and her Pope fairly wallowed in slime. 
 But while vice multiform on Rome bore such sway 
 The church had not then, of course, fallen away. 
 
 ^An. £ccle8. 345 ; Gianoone vii : 6. 
 
46 
 
 Then there's John tlie XII with his terrihie past, 
 
 Who in crime had reached nearly the top of the mast.* 
 
 But why stir up the mud more, her annals so full 
 
 Of such horrible things that we need scarce to cull : 
 
 And then in the age before Luther had not 
 
 The Lord Cardinal of Florence declared they had got 
 
 So deep in the mire of corruption, that naught 
 
 But the wholesale reform of the church, as he saith, 
 
 ** Of the head and the members, in morals and faith 
 
 Will sufifice," hence •* this council must not be dissolved 
 
 Till this is effected " so much in*t was involved. 
 
 And had not the Grey Friars in the age that foreran 
 The council of Pisa — so we read in Du Pin — 
 Preached publicly this, that the pope was the sure 
 Forerunner of Antichrist, men to allure 
 From Christ to the Devil ; while in Petrarch we see 
 The words of a poet contemporary, 
 ** Home, Hell of the living, Church of heresy,'* 
 
 In fifteen hundred and twelve, alas, such, 
 Said the Pope, is the state of the Catholic Church 
 That " it must be reformed." How it needed it, see, 
 At the Lateral Council, what was spoke by Begni. 
 
 But though by historians much, much is confessed, 
 Yet but five years after, when Luther impressed 
 With this need of reform, but, dallying not, ' ' 
 
 Fired into camp of the foe his hot shot, • ' 
 
 Which rang through all Europe, it startled them all 
 From ultima Thule to the Vatican Hall, 
 
 *•' John," says Cardinal Bellarmine, ''was nearly the wickedest of the Popes." 
 " The Church " (lOth Century) writes the Catholic Giannone, "was plunged in 
 a choas of iniquities" — " L'eglise etoit plongee dans un chaos d' impietes." 
 Another Catholic writer also says, "they defiled the most holv chair with 
 filthiest morals" — Moribus iniquinatissiniis foedavisse. Barclay : but, of course, 
 there was no falling away from the church of the Apostles. Do Romanists ever 
 really think? 
 
 The Council of Trent, while sitting, afiirmed that " Ecclesiastical discipline 
 had nearly come to an end, that morals among the clergy and christian people 
 were depraved, and through the unconcern of the times and men the ancient 
 canons were almost lost sight of." 
 
 Bellarmine says it is by no means certain and indubitable that John XXIII 
 was a Pontiff . . . for there were at that time three who wished to be con- 
 sidered Pontifls, (treg. XII, Benedict XIII, and John XXIII; nor could it be 
 easily decided (nee poterat facile judicari) which of them was the true and legiti- 
 mate Pontiff." " Pope Boneface VII," writes Cardinal Baronius, " was rather 
 a thief, a murderer, and a traitor to his country than a Pope ;" and he propounds 
 the question, as to whether Marozia's and her daughter's Pope-making, showeth 
 not the skirt of the who^e. of Babylon.'^ " Whether bastards, bribers and athiests 
 may be owned as Vicars of Christ or St. Peter's successors." How awful ! 
 
• 
 
 CauBing such iniignation, that he, a poor priest 
 Should attempt to do this. What ! He mean to resist 
 The power of the church ! Bah ! He's gone in the head, 
 By some sickness of brain, or some demon misled. 
 
 But, spite of the church and the Empire, entrenched 
 Behind his loved wall of the scriptures, he wrenched 
 From the Pope half of Europe, and in spite of the storm 
 Of war long and fierce which raged round him, poor worm. 
 And threatened his life, the great cause of reform 
 Won its way in the world — when, laying his head 
 On his pillow at last, he died in his own bed. 
 
 Now if for naught else, the Romaniet owes 
 The Protestant thanks ; for, as history shows. 
 The now moral state of his church, as compared 
 With that which the ''Annals" just quoted have bared 
 To the eye of the reader, is such as makes known 
 That its people now dwell in a different zone. 
 For the stir of the air in our Protestant clime 
 Must have had its effect in due process of time. 
 While, too, of the seeds that fall ripe to th earth, ?| 
 
 A few here aud there can scarce fail to give birth 
 To sound cognate ideas, to shed their like seeds. 
 Which, through vigor of nature, must crowd out the weak weeds. 
 
 Then, if to the truth we be true, and make plain 
 By our manner of life, that not victory, or gain. 
 Or fame, or position in life, is our end. 
 But that our main purpose is this, to defend 
 Honest freedom of thought, open-eyed, free of speech. 
 And that this in behalf of true progress we teach, 
 Then may we not hope that all efforts will fail . ^ 
 
 To upset our position, and right yet prevail. > : ; 
 
 But, oh, Galileo, with poor broken wing, 
 Who had once soared aloft his high message to bring 
 From the skies to the earth, but who, frightened and sad, 
 At what then lay before him, was only too glad 
 To escape that dread engine the church, in her need. 
 Has proved stronger than reason to buttress her creed — 
 Was soon ready to state, since the Church had said so. 
 That the sun and the stars and the Heavens all gc 
 Every twer*y-four hours round the earth^"^ which stands stilly 
 
 * " In the name and by the authority of jesus christ, the plenchede of which 
 resides in this vicar, the Pope. We declare that the teaching that the earth is 
 not the centre of the world (universe), and that it moves with a diurnal motion, 
 is absurd, philosophically false, and crronious injaith.^' 
 
 This was, indeed, a strong blast of infallibility ! But the lightning which 
 burnt the wings of poor Galileo is but a brutunk fulioen to-day, and only a 
 
48 
 
 The great centra of all things — a very hard pill 
 For science to swallow ! Bah ! ScieDoe indeed, 
 When the church of the infalHble=»7 bo hath decreed. 
 
 For ihefactt of the world what are they, though we see 
 They are plain, downright facts, when a simple decree 
 Of the church can disprove them, and science and sight — 
 Honest windows of nature to let in the light — 
 Are but tricksters to cheat us ; for Popery knows 
 That a wafer's a man : and, though eyes, tongue, and nose 
 The assertion disprove, yet she cannot back out 
 Of her solemnly chosen position, without 
 Such a shock to the system, that no man would dare 
 The old crumbling ruin thenceforth to repair. 
 
 Yet I doubt even this, for theology knows 
 How to bend stiff eat facts, and, so, baffle her foes ; 
 For too often the heart sends the intellect cold 
 In quest of such reasons, as serve to uphold 
 The cause that from interest, prejudice, pride. 
 Or some compound of motives to self-love allied. 
 It would fain have succeed. Hence the pushing aside 
 Of such facts inconvenient, as else might collide 
 With the cause we espouse ; while allowing all force 
 To the reasons which tell for the opposite course. 
 'Tis so that we palter with truth closing tight ' v 
 
 The lids of the soul 'gainst the entrance of light. . * f 
 But if we, for some theological end. 
 The plain facts of the world triniy torture and bend. 
 Till they fit the pre-judgment and needs of the mind, 
 So dwarfed and distorted, that scarce can we find 
 Honest, freo-acting manhood, we damage thereby 
 Our own souls — a plain felo de se — and the lie. 
 Once suffered within, spreads like leaven and fills 
 With its poison the mind, and, so, honesty kills. 
 
 But the Eomish religion implies that the mind 
 In all thorough thinking lags wholly behind. 
 No largeness of treatment, no profoundness of thought, 
 No clearness of vision need ever be sought 
 In a mind that is dwarfed and forbidden to see 
 Things JMS< as they are. Where the mind is not free — 
 Where the soul can believe that a wafer's a man 
 With all his appurtenance, he's prepared for and can 
 
 pitiable exhibition of Papal fallibility But Galileo had to lend himself to this 
 painful statement *' labjure, curse and detest the error and heresy of the motion 
 of the earth round the sun." Bumble pie, such as that which the poor *' Fr«e- 
 man " had to eat a few days since. 
 
49 t 
 
 Believe anything ^ then. Then, how men of research 
 Have been bullied and tamed by the whip of the Church. 
 
 When we see such a thing as a Newman to-day, 
 (Though a leaner, a leaner y a li.aneb* alway) 
 Caught in this delusion, do we deem 'twill decay 
 By a natural process, and vanish away, 
 Or at least waive such doctrines as block up the way 
 To our civilized progress, by letting things drift 
 "While we sit by contented and our voice never lift. 
 
 I hope 'twill be so, but I fear they're mistaken, 
 Who deem that the realm of old Rome will be shaken, 
 So, to its foundations, that by rack and by flame. 
 The right to crush conscience no more will thpy claim. 
 But contented descend to the Protestant plane. 
 Of argument simply her cause to maintain. 
 And why not (like Lord Acton, to Popery true,) 
 All confess that the Catholic practice all through. 
 As, in answer to Gladstone, he frankly declares 
 " Has been the uprooting of Heretic tares, 
 •* And their doctrine no less. As a Pope, in his day 
 •* Of some note, has decided that whoso will, may 
 *' Kill those who by ban of the Pope have been thrust 
 •* Outside the Church pale ; that such ruling august; — 
 ** Of the Canon-law part— is in every reprint 
 *• Of that body of law — Corpus Juris — that mint 
 •• Of the Church's coined wealth— as of old, still in force, 
 " And for centuries many hath mapped out the course 
 •' Of the Church when in power. The Inquisition —says he, 
 " Shows 'twas no dead letter, no unworked theory." 
 Thus we see what's in pickle for you and for me. 
 
 * Cardinal Newmau was emphatically a leaner — a leaner on authority. He 
 began and ended so. At first he leant on the Anglican Church. In those days 
 he said " My Bishop is my Pope." But the Church of England was too reasoned 
 — too much governed by private judgment on what Jesus had taught and Paul 
 had written — too little in her of the lean on me and go it blind principle — not 
 enough absolute. Then he went to Rome. Here he found what suited him to a 
 hair — absolute authority. He had now touched bottom, and was prepared to 
 bolt wholesale everything — her unbelievable dogmas, her terrible history, her sil- 
 liest superstitions, her wildest fables — yet was he a fine writer, and a subtle, 
 keen and powerful reasoner, when only he held his brief ; yes, that is it, his 
 brief, for the forensic was strong in him. But a thinker ! No. That is the 
 last thing that should be said of him. He was not a thinker, only a BRIEF- 
 HOLDER. 
 
 But we owe a duty to our own intellects, and should not surrender them save 
 to a clear conviction. " Why," says Christ, "even of your own selves judge ye 
 not what is right?" Let Newman be a warning to us — nursed on the pap of au- 
 thority, dropping lower and ever lower in the scale of erect intellectual manhood 
 until he fell at last in passive feebleness into the lap of Rome. 
 
What further he writes of the Catholic creed, 
 As in practice apphed, is appalling indeed. 
 
 And yet when we think of her Xaviers and hosts 
 Of women and men, of whom Rome justly hoasts, 
 Her Theresas, EHzabeths, Loyolas, all 
 The strong, loyal, beautiful souls whom the call 
 Of duty or love summoned forth in their day. 
 To stand up for their Lord, and act, labor, and pray 
 Fur the cause that was dear to their hearts, and to bear 
 Hunger, thirst, heat, and cold with the wretchedest fare. 
 And all earthly privations, what soul can withhold 
 Admiration from such — howe'er creed-bound and cold. 
 
 But why deem that others with saiut-souls as true 
 Or loving as their's, and who equally do 
 With the strong, yearning love of the right and the good. 
 What they think is their duty ; to whom as the food 
 And drink of their souls is the love of their God — 
 Why deem they that such will be yet cast away ' • 
 
 By a God they call merciful, since gone astray 
 From the course that the Pope had mapped out as the way, 
 In which men should walk. Some albeit may think 
 That though such souls stand on the frightfullest brink 
 Of the wide-yawnmg pit ; yet St. Peter, their fate 
 Regarding with pity, might open the gate, • 
 
 Through which they might enter and take a back seat. 
 
 But. oh, think such of Heaven as of some small court 
 Of Eastern Despot, wherein men resort 
 To the favourite who has the ear of his Lord . ' • • 
 
 Or favorite's favorite, to save from the sword. 
 Or get gift or place ? Do they deem that without ' ' ' 
 Such favorite's favour they might be cast out, 
 And to save from the doom they have earned by sin. 
 That a Mary or Peter or James may step in. 
 
 But our world's a mere satellite speck which belongs 
 To a system of things which the Universe throngs 
 With millions of suns, and, as we may conceive. 
 With their satellites each. Then, how can men believe, 
 That such a small huxtering, wretched concern 
 Accords with this system of things which we learn. 
 When we gaze at that star-studded, vast, azure deep. 
 While the scriptures too, say, •' as men sow shall they reapt** 
 And that *' each of himself shall give account to God 
 Of the things done on earth be they evil or good." 
 And receive his award, while to each man alone, 
 For Saint's sake or Pontiffs, no favour is shown 
 
 M 
 
51 
 
 It is God's only God's, to condemn or condone ! 
 
 But hope they from Dcruinic, Matthew or Paul, 
 
 More then from the grea^ merciful father of all ? 
 
 The Protestants may not call down fire on those 
 
 Who, Boman or Pagari, his doctriDes oppose. 
 
 ♦' Who are you who another man's eervant condemn ?" 
 
 •' Let the tares and the wheat," said the Saviour of men, 
 
 ** Together grow up in the world to the end," 
 
 '• When God (who knows all things) his angels will send 
 
 To garner his wheat sheaves." Thus he who most cares 
 
 For the weal of his church says, " pluck up not the tares." 
 
 But I fear much that Rome in her feverish heat 
 
 To pluck up the tares often plucked up the wheat, 
 
 Far oftener mayhap, for her cruelties broke 
 
 The strongest and beet, till half Europe awoke, 
 
 Cried pity and shame, and this fooling must cease, 
 
 For torture and weeping we must henceforth have peace. 
 
 But why should the pope so withdraw to his deu. 
 Threatening what he will do when he power has again. 
 And why not, instead, take a good-humoured stand 
 With the great christian sections of every land. 
 We would hail this with joy, grant the amplest fair play, 
 Give the honest right hand, be as frank as the day. 
 And hearken with pleasure to all he would say. 
 
 But while he asserts his own right to free speech 
 And free conscience (and nc one denies him), why teach 
 That another for conscience and G^d is not free i- . ) 
 
 To think what he cannot but think honestly. 
 But if the pope holds all the dogmas of Trent 
 With honest belief ; if he never has sent 
 The intellect cunning with wily intent, 
 Seduced by the heart, to seek reasons to make 
 The wrong appear right ; if he cannot awake 
 Out of dream-land to see things, clear-souled, as they are, 
 But ir training, and habit, and prejudice bar 
 The entrance of light ; if he cannot perceive 
 The vast contrast between that which Romans believe 
 And the teachings of Christ and of Paul ; if so blind 
 That he cannot see this through want innate of mind, 
 Or through vast distortion, it is not our part 
 To act, as would he, without reason or heart. 
 
 But the duty to honestly think, as to see 
 With our bodily eyes is a duty which we 
 Are to exercise bound ; for the eyes of the mind 
 Are given us no less our true pathway to find 
 
 ^ , 
 
Sk^ 
 
 52 
 
 Through life's by-ways, where often the blind lead the blind. 
 
 But DO one in essentials may miss the right goal, 
 
 For God hath made that for the true human soul 
 
 An impossible thing ; for •' who wishes to do"^ 
 
 The will of his Maker'' holds ever the clue 
 
 To guide him in judgment , for if single the sight 
 
 The soul of the man will have adequate light. 
 
 If from cheating the soul we honestly shrink, 
 
 If resolved to do right, what we think we viutt think. 
 
 Then, why should a pope cause a maiden to burn 
 
 In lingering torments, who cannot unlearn 
 
 A faith that is dearer to her than her life, 
 
 Spite the torments that close it, so ending the strife 
 
 With herself and the world. A martyr soul she 
 
 Done to death for a sheer impossibility — ^ ,, , 
 
 Her faith the effect of as potent a cause 
 
 As the ebb of the tides under gravity's laws. 
 
 Just hear her poor cries, yet no cries here avail, 
 
 * Oh, gentles, have mercy ; let justice prevail, 
 
 * At the flames curling round us our coward hearts fail, 
 
 * Yet, 'gainst conscience and Christ, what excuse can avail.' 
 
 INQ. ' " 
 
 * Christ and conscience, forsooth : Do as I command, 
 
 * Christ and conscience ! What yet ? Then die and be damned.' 
 
 For to stifle an error the best way she can, 
 Bome deems it the safest to stifle the man. 
 And she lays down the rule with no sense of remorse, 
 That when she has power she again will use force, 
 And (for 3uch fills her soul with the direst distress) 
 Allow no ** free conscience," "free speech" or "free press." 
 
 What a horrible crime this ! And Jesus declares 
 'Tis permitted to no one " to pull up the tares." 
 Hence though any should be, e'en a heretic, still 
 Christ's word is explicit forbidding to kill, 
 But, alas, we such fools are, that though they declare 
 What their principles are, and what doings they'll dare. 
 When they the power have, as they ever have done. 
 When they were the stronger, in ages by-gone. 
 Yea, to aid them to scatter thei principles wide, 
 With the sinews of war we their leaders provide. 
 Oh, fatuous mortals ! Why will you not stand 
 Up for freedom and right in this Protestant land 
 • With shoulder to shoulder, determined to show 
 On every occasion your face to the foe. 
 
 •John VII, 17 : "If any loishes to do, he shall know," 
 
 :^ 
 
5d 
 
 But how small are such things — Protection, Freetrade— 
 Or who by the States shall be President made, 
 Or who at Sadowa the victory won, 
 Or who sits to-day on the great German throne, - 
 Which though things of great weight in themselves we admit 
 Yet in their results, we ask can human wit 
 Find aught to compare, after a critical search, \ 
 Between these and the principles fell of that church. 
 Which stri'ies low at the liberty of human thought 
 As though reason and conscience were given for naught, 
 And our civilization to be driven back 
 By the slow creeping fire and the thumbscrew and rack, 
 And ai! the machinery Rome knows so well. 
 To make our poor planet a precinct of hell. 
 
 Equal Rights ! how they laugh. What they want is that they 
 May treat us poor dupes as the potter the clay, 
 May mould us to what shape soever they choose, 
 Or on the wheel break us, in case we refuse, "^ 
 Not the people perhaps, but as I opine, 
 They'd have, if commanded to fall, too, into line. 
 
 But should she again put her heel on our necks, 't 
 
 And this she announces in no Delphic texts, ^ 
 
 But boldly proclaims : then sevenfold cursed 
 The last state of the world ivill be first than the first. 
 For she'll Argus-eyed watch the first ripple that shows 
 On the surface of things, and not wait to oppose, 
 Till they grow to a head, but, wakeful throughout. 
 Will at once every budding young Luther snuflf out. 
 
 Yet in Rome's very city where thousand fold strong, . 
 The dogmas of Rome have been taught all along 
 By the Pope on the spot at the high solemn feasts. 
 And by Cardinals, Bishops, Monks, Nuns, Priors, Priests, ^ 
 Where nothing dare lift up its head to oppose ' > 
 
 The beautiful stillness, *;he saintly repose. 
 Yet when it was asked of the people so taught, 
 What way they would vote ?— Why allow it a though*. ? — 
 Those privileged persons so guar led and brought 
 So carefully up in the Jesuit school ? 
 Yes, they'll certainly vote for the Pope and home-rule. 
 Yet though 'tis a crime deeper dyed to oppose 
 In temporal^ matters the Pope than in those 
 Of pure priestly concern, yet in spite of the woe 
 
 ^Lord Acton (a Catholic) tells us that *' a modem Pontiff has affirmed . . . 
 that those who questioned and restricted his authority in temporal matters were 
 yorse than those who rejected it in spirituals. " 
 
 \ 
 
54 
 
 To befall them hereafter, they vote for his foe, 
 
 For the King* forty-thousand, for the Pope forty-six ; 
 
 Thus putting the Pope in a very bad fix, 
 
 For we cannot with figures, as with dogmas, play tricks. 
 
 For though fancy may paint to us things away far 
 
 In ric^ colors, yet nearness shows things as they are. 
 
 The moon far away looks so queenly and fair. 
 
 But brought near's a mere wreck, all chaotic and bare. 
 
 This fills the pope's soul with the direct distress, 
 For he wants not free conscience, free speech or free presa. 
 For the' all-knowing Infallible knows 'tis not good 
 That the mind should partake of its natural food, 
 Free-searching, clean knowledge, and reason's bright beam 
 Turned in on the soul our low life to redeem, 
 Or that teaching of Christ, in which rude fisher-folk, 
 Electric with thought, such strange echoes awoke. 
 As he showed them the inwards of things, the live germ. 
 For whose use the thick coating of husk and tough derm 
 Exists, while whatever goes in by the mouth 
 Can no man defile,! 'tis the things that come out 
 Of the mutinous heart — evil thoughts — only can 
 Defile, for they touch the quick soul of the man. 
 
 Metanoia, repentance, not penance, is shown 
 To be its true meaning, from Xenophon down 
 To Lucian — a change of the mind, not an act 
 Of penance to punish — the heart left oft intact — 
 But, in scriptural sense, such a change of the mind 
 As leaves the past life of the sinner behind, 
 A repentance that comes with the unsparing knife 
 That cuts rigidly down to the roots of our life. 
 
 Did Peter or Paul a hair-shirt, I ask, wear 
 Or draw blood with a whip from their bodies all bare ^ 
 Or make these of the virtues / If so, tell me where ! 
 Is God such an one that he's pleased with our pain ? 
 And what, let me ask, to mankind were the gain. 
 Should a Simon Stylites forever remain 
 On his pillar aloft, or a Dominic lash 
 His quivering limbs, or a poor Fakir gash 
 His body with knives, or by a hook hang — 
 The greater the merit the keener the pang.J 
 
 *The actual numbers were 40,885 for Victor Emmanuel, and for the Pope 46 
 votes. 
 
 t Matt. XV, 17-20. 
 
 t St. Paul warns thus : '* Let no man rob you of your reward by a voluntary 
 humility and worshipping of angels. Such things have indeed a sAaio of wisdom 
 

 56 
 
 Father Hue was surprised at the likeness between 
 The Buddhist and Roman religion he'd seen, 
 In so many respects, and could but in this way 
 Account for the fact, by supposing foul play 
 On the part of the Devil, to caricature 
 The Catholic rites, his bad ends to insure. 
 •• Thou shalt not make an image of stone or of wood. 
 Or likeness of aught that's in Heaven," says God, 
 To bow to or worship. Such is the command 
 But 'tis set at naught here and in every land, 
 And the argument, used to excuse it, implies ; 
 
 That scant charge against Pagan Idolatry lies. 
 
 ♦' The gospel," said Jesus, •• is preached to the poor/' 
 But Rome thinks her tenure of men not secure, 
 Where this gospel is read without comment or note r^ 
 
 In the schools of the land — worse if learnt by rote — 
 As tending an anti-Rome faith to promote ; 
 And how possibly could the sweet teaching therein • V 
 
 So simple, soul-stirring, not merely akin 
 To reason, but reason herself bedded m 
 The words of the Christ, fail by contrast to show 
 How from the high table-land, perfumed, aglow 
 With the beauty of Springtime, men could drop so low 
 As to jungles mephitic, which Rome loves so well 
 And, unused to the "heights, is content there to dwell. 
 
 It is true in the Vlth of John's gospel Christ saith 
 ** He who eateth my flesh shall never see death." 
 Now the event out of which these grave sayings arose 
 Serve the meaning of Christ, in these words, to disclose. 
 
 To get bread material your bodies to feed, 
 Said Christ to the crowds, is your end, but you need 
 A different food from what Moses supplied. 
 For those who partook of that manna all died, 
 While they who partake of the bread that I give ^ ^ 
 
 (For the food of the soul) shall eternally live. 
 
 Of course, 'tis & figure, for those who so ate. 
 Like those who ate not, the common fate met ; " 
 
 Again, in this very same chapter we see, 
 " I the bread am of life, and who cometh to me 
 
 in uJtW worship and humility and severity to the body, but are no^ of any value 
 against the indulgence of the flesh." Col. ii, 18-23. That is, doing things that 
 are not required of him after the promptings of his own mind, but which are of 
 no use whatever in eradicating fleshly desires. As St. Jerome writes, "My 
 limbs were rough with sackcloth and my body as an Ethiopian's, yet my soul 
 was heaving with passion." 
 
 ^ 
 
' 56 
 
 From hunger and thirst shall be evermore free/* 
 
 But this was, of course, spoke not literally. 
 
 For Christ was not bread, but a true living man, 
 
 Of flesh, brain, and bones, in whose arteried ran 
 
 The red blood of life ; and 'twas not tr'ic again 
 
 In the letter, that is, that true christian men 
 
 Should not hunger and thirst ; but that God would supply 
 
 The needs of the soul, which would hence never die. 
 
 Then, he tells us again, that to carnally eat 
 *' His flesh could not pmjit " the soul, because meat 
 Only enters the body, while "the words by Him spoke 
 *• They are spirit and life,'' which the portals unlock 
 Of the soul ; sc unlike what the senses descry. 
 Though a verity seen by the purged inner eye. ^ 
 
 Still '* his flesh is true food," for of it all who eat 
 Shall eternally live, but not so of the meat — 
 The wilderness manna — which could but supply 
 The physical body, hence destined to die. 
 And hence not meat substantial, souZ-nouriahing food 
 To supply to the spirit the true vital blood 
 Of Christ in the soul ; and nothing more harms ' 
 
 Than deeming religion a cultus of charms, ' <l 
 
 Or that actions outside can, as such, confer grace, 
 This were the religion of Christ to debase, | 
 
 And set up a fetish for his who saw through ' " 
 
 The formal and outward, and held up to view 
 The state of the soul, as what alone can ^ 
 
 Make the difference real between man and man. 
 
 But what is the ground for asserting that Christ 
 Refers here at all to the sole Eucharist ? 
 'Tis a simple assumption ; for 'tis stated no where 
 By Christ or by John that the words here refer 
 To this only act— the Lord's supper. Then, why 
 To' the gener&l feedvig on Christ not apply'^ ^ 
 
 ^ ^ Words of general import. Why, even some Popes, 
 
 * John VI chapter : " Unless ye eat my flesh and drink my blood ye have no 
 life in you." Cardinal Cajitan affirms that these words do not refer to eating 
 and drinking in the sacrament at all ; and that they are to be understood thus, 
 " if ye use not the death of the son of God as meat and drink, ye have not the 
 life of the Spirit in you." And Pope Pius II, a very learned Pope, and Pope In- 
 nocent III, and some Cardinals and Divines of the R. C. Church express like 
 views. Pius II says of this same John vi : ' ' It is a spiritual manner of drinking 
 that is there taught," and he gives his reasons to prove that it is so. Even the 
 Council of Trent refused to determine w^hether John vi referred to sacramental or 
 spiritual eating. While Cardinal Bellarmine admits that transubstantiation was 
 not fully licked into shape, as an article of faith, till over & thousand years after 
 the death of Christ. 
 
69 
 
 And Divines of your Church deem the words here are tropes. 
 
 But let us remember that the one sterling test, 
 To which Jesus appeals as the probatum est. 
 Is the senses' decision ; for " handle and see" 
 Are the strongest of proofs that can possibly be, 
 And how far better this than the creed that a pridst 
 Can make a whole man from a small bit of paste ? 
 
 Oh, tallest of miracles I St. Denis, his head 
 His own arm tucked under, as onward he sped, 
 Shows small beside this ; when deliberately. 
 With our minds wide awake, we may '* handle and see." 
 Thus be not deluded, let none steal your brains, 
 A wafer you see it, a wafer remains. 
 
 The sense of the scripture, as a whole, is so clear, 
 That by our plain chart we have only to steer ^ 
 
 With honest intention, in order to reach 
 The harbour of safety, Christ declaring to each 
 That *' who seeketh shall find.'' It is true here and there 
 Dark spots may occur. Yet how do they impair 
 The general clearness ? In the sun men detect 
 Spots, but on his whole shining how small their effect. 
 But though clear as a whole, yet are there whose eyes 
 Are so fixed on these spots, that the light-flooded skies 
 Are obscured or shut out ; so contracted the soul 
 That they cannot take in the great luminous whole. 
 
 In his second epistle Peter tells us that Paul 
 In writing to churches, as well as in all 
 His epistles, when speaking of things that relate r* <: 
 
 To the end of the world and those startlingly great 
 Concurring events says " some things there are hard * 
 
 To be understood," hence the need that we guard 
 Against misconception, for ignorant men 
 Would ^*wrest" to their purpose the fruits of his pen. . . 
 
 First, then, the words herein referred to as " hard," 
 To the writing of only St. Paul have regard, 
 And then to his words, "of these things'' of which Paul 
 At such time was speaking — the end of the all — 
 They &re further restricted. Still of these only ''some" 
 Are pronounced to be hard. Then lastly we come 
 To the process of ''wresting" these words to their ends 
 By some ** ignorant, unstable minds." But this lends 
 Small comfort to any one, should he maintain 
 That the scriptures may not be perused in the plain, 
 Honest style they were penned in or spoken to all — 
 To the unlearned and learned, the great and the small. . 
 
58 
 
 But how to interpret the whole by a part, 
 Not the part by the whole is the Jesuit's art. 
 
 PAP. 
 
 * But no passage of scripture, by St. Peter we're told, 
 ' Is of "private" solution. 
 
 PRO. 
 
 But are not you too bold ? 
 The word is not •* passage," but *' prophecy," and 
 The sense, I conceive, you do not understand. 
 If you mean to infer that 'private" implies 
 That we may not it read with a view to grow wise, 
 Though Paul wrote his epistles to be read by the churchy 
 Though they are commended who the scriptures aye search, 
 Though his gospel Christ preached to the ignorant poor, 
 Though the sense here, close looked at, is scarcely obscure, 
 
 * Tis this— for the meaning is infallibly sure — 
 
 No '• prophecy" comes from the prophet's own soul. 
 But God, through the prophet, is pleased to unroll 
 His future designs. Hence the prophecy is 
 Divine and not human ; not *' private," but his 
 By whom 'tis revealed ; hence, since God's, "take your heed 
 To it as a beacon set up" for your r3ed, 
 To comfort you through the lon^ woarisome night. 
 Till the day-star arises to flood you with light ; ' ' 
 
 "For" no prophecy comes from the prophet's own skill 
 In reading the future — "not by human will — " ■ * 
 
 But holy men spake as God's spirit had moulded 
 Their minds to his thought, and the future unfolded. 
 * But what, is there in this to discourage a man 
 From seeking to learn here whatever he can ? 
 Far from it, to it we are urged to "take heed. 
 As a light set" to cheer us in time of sore need. 
 
 In Genesis first we are told that the earth 
 Took only six days from the hour of her birth 
 To its full store of animal life — day by day 
 Supplying new life in progressive array. 
 Yet we're forced by the facts of the world to admit 
 Long OBons of time intervening, and it — 
 The text — to interpret so that harmony 
 May exist between it and geology. 
 The days read for ages — the long days of God — 
 What if slow or if fast, if the end's alike good. 
 
 Again it is written, " a camel might pass 
 With more ease through the eye of a needle, alas, 
 
69 
 
 Than a rich man the kingdom of heaven attain/' 
 
 (Yet, mid piles of traditional rubbish, we gain 
 
 This tit-bit of news, that St. Peter in fact 
 
 Direct this great physical problem attacked, 
 
 Andjorced it right through). But, alas, for our age 
 
 Which has passed somewhat through the old credulous stage. 
 
 It also is written, *' unless a man hate 
 His father and mother, he cannot reach the state 
 Of discipleship," but the reverent soul 
 Will such isolate texts harmonise witn the whole. 
 
 The stars and the planets were once found to go round 
 Our speck of a world, since they had been so bound 
 By a Papal decree, but to-day our small earth 
 Drops into her place by the law of her birth. 
 Epicycles and cycles now, demanded before 
 To buttress this system, required are no more. 
 
 So when the whole sense as a whole is sun-clear, 
 We interpret a text, that sounds strange in the ear. 
 By the whole sweep and current of thought making plain, 
 As though written in letters of light on the brain. 
 
 Again it is writ, •• if to this mountain ye 
 Say, with faith, be removed and cast into the sea, f 
 
 It will be so done. But if these words hold good 
 For the priests of all time^ may we therefore conclude *• 
 
 That, as in the case of " whose sins we remit," 
 Spoke to the disciples, these words too commit, 
 On similar grounds, the priests of to-day, 
 To interpret these words in a sensible way, • ^ • - 
 
 Choosing of the dilemma which e'er horn they may. 
 May we not then interpret such texts by a rule 
 That will make the interpret less than a fool. 
 We come now to our text, " whose sins ye remit," 
 And ask to apply what we've here urged to it : * ' 
 
 For has it not seemed to the mind as so strange 
 That a doctrine with issues of force to derange 
 Tht whole social fabric reaching down to the roots 
 Of life h£re and beyond it, and yielding such fruits 
 Should on one lonely text for its sanction depend, 
 — Eleven words only from beginning to ^nd 
 Of that big book, the Bible. Yet doctrines of weight — 
 Eepentance and faith and the morals that mate 
 With the christian's high calling — occur everywhere, — 
 Text piled upon text and enforced with such care. 
 Does this not seem strange, if, as Romanists say 
 To interpret the passage theirs be the true way 
 
 h 
 
A) 
 
 With all oonseqaents claimed. But if the text t>e 
 
 Declarative, as iu Paul's writings we see 
 
 And Peter's and John's, in their letters althrough. 
 
 When instructing the Church, and in " the Acts " too. 
 
 Then is it accordant with all elsewhere writ, 
 
 Which ignores such a thought as that priests can remit. 
 
 But here or elsewhere no promise is given 
 
 That so awful a power, by which priest-craft has thriven, 
 
 It from priest hand to priest hand through all time to pass 
 
 A magic endowment, which yec the great mass 
 
 Of the poor sleepy world accepts ; still is it 
 
 What else than assumption, and no human wit, 
 
 E'en aided by strange school- man logic can make 
 
 The text look beyond those to whom Christ then spake, 
 
 Unless as declarative of how sin may be 
 
 F'^rgiven, so to speak, constitutionally. 
 
 But if Christ had these words used to persons well-known 
 And inspired by his Spirit, and standing alone 
 From the rest of the world — his own very own — 
 If Christ spake these words to men known and inspired 
 And for specialist work so fully attired, 
 Why must we assume that the words spoke of those 
 Whom Christ then addressed, were spoke too, of his/o«f — 
 His deadliest foes, the Borgias of old 
 Et id genus omne, '* fifty popes, ' we are told, 
 " Apostatical not Apostolical " * so * 
 Writes catholic Gerebrand, who surely should know. 
 What ! Was it of these men of whom Jesus said 
 •• Whose sins ye remit are remitted," though led 
 By the Devil yourselves ; and " whose sins ye retain 
 " To them are retained " ; for repentance is vain 
 And faith in my work, if you call in no priest. 
 By whom your sins formally may be released, 
 So too though assumed that bad men may remit 
 Yet where is such stated, pray, in holy writ ? 
 
 If these words then of Christ be urged to uphold 
 A doctrine so awful, so fraught with untold 
 Degradation and danger ; if Peter and Paul 
 James and John in their preaching refer not at all 
 To such priest-forgiveness, but simply declare 
 The terms of salvation by which everywhere 
 Men may pardon obtain, '* repent and believe*' — 
 The 9ne docttine throughout — and God will forgive. 
 But no word of a go-between pardoning priest 
 Through whose intervention the sinner's released. 
 
 / 
 
 1 
 
61 
 
 \ 
 
 Then why will we the grammar of scripture bo parse 
 As to make Christianity simply a farce ? 
 
 Thus how to interpret the passage we see 
 By the teaching of Peter, with whom wholly agree 
 The other Apostles. 
 
 To the Jailer"^ who cried 
 *• How must I be saved, sirs ?" Paul and Silas replied 
 (Not, we will absolve you, for we have the power 
 But) "believe thou on Jesus " ; and believing that hour 
 " Thy sins will be pardoned." For '* whoso believes 
 *' In Christ of his sins the remission receives." 
 Then why so insistant — though nowhere 'tis writ 
 That a bad man could then or thereafter remit 
 Or retain a man's sins — that you certainly know, 
 (Though only by rigmarole logic) 'tis so. 
 But a power so tremendous, unspeakable, vast. 
 Which so staggers belief that the mind stands aghast, 
 Should have been writ sun-clear, not merely inferred. 
 From something the speaker had never averred. 
 And opposed to the whole Apostolical view 
 So fully made clear in the scriptures althrough. 
 
 A comet eccentric flies off into space 
 Yet the laws of the Universe hold it in chase, 
 Till 'tis found to ^all in with the general laws — 
 To us the expression of adequate cause — « ' - 
 
 For the laws of the whole determine the parts, } 
 
 And from this settled rule no comet departs. 
 So an isolate text of the scriptures we're bound 
 Dy the general sense of the whole to expound. 
 It seems scarcely the way should the mind feel perplexed 
 As to what is the serine of an isolate text, 
 To interpret it so that its meaning collide 
 With the doctrine throughout taught, thus setting aside 
 The plain meaning clear-writ and abundantly taught 
 On page after page of the scriptures, yea wrought 
 Throughout, wrap and woof, in the texture, and soul 
 Which pervades and infolds and explains the great whole. 
 But the whole to explain by a line or a verse 
 Would be the true schema of things to reverse. 
 The sun, moon and stars once revolved round the earth — 
 The great Geocentric — in times of the dearth 
 Of genuine science. So round this one verse 
 The scriptures revolving their meaning reverse. 
 
 / 
 
 • Acti XVII ; 30, 31, 
 
Then let us, poor fools, our misjudgment retrace 
 
 That this verse like the earth take its own proper place. 
 
 The apostolate office if intended to be 
 Continued or not, I do not clearly see 
 From the scriptures or early church history, 
 The elders or bishops so far as we know 
 By apostles we deem were appointed thereto 
 Or by delegates chosen by them to this end. 
 But good men may other opinion defend. 
 But as wise Nazianzen (St. Gregory) wrote 
 " The succession of piety's the matter that ought 
 ** To be deemed the true normal succession, one man 
 " May the formal succession possess, but how can 
 •' This weigh 'gainst the other, who the very thing hath 
 *• Itself— the succession in deed and in truth." 
 While Bellarmine admits, *' it need not be that where 
 There is a succession, the church also is there/' 
 
 And the church, the true church, wherever she's found 
 In morals andfaith^ constitutionally sounds 
 Is •* pillar and stay of the truth" upon earth ; 
 For the church is in essence those whom the **new birth*' 
 To goodness and truth makes the members thereof, 
 Belonging as such to the church that's above, 
 Not those whose great boast 'tis their church is so old, 
 (Yet Christ's church is older), their creed is pure gold, 
 Though crusted and rusted and coated with mould ; ^ 
 Who, though they be sinners through life, yet believe 
 Their sins at its close any priest can forgive. 
 But the church, truth's strong pillar, is bound to uphold 
 The doctrines of truth and keep wolves /row the fold. 
 " Whose sins ye remit no matter what he, . 
 If a hardened impenitent, in himself be. 
 And "whose sins ye retain" although he be good 
 To the core of his life through the spirit of God, 
 Yet on *• I absolve thee," his sins are forgiven ; { 
 
 But, (the other's retained) he is shut out from heaven. 
 Does it rest with the priest then and not with the man, 
 If to enter Christ's kingdom he cannot or can, 
 For "intention" looms large in Rome's subtly laid plan. 
 
 But if it means simply this, if the man hath, 
 What the gospel demands, repentance and faith. 
 His sins are forgiven, it falls in with all 
 That is written throughout by Saint Peter and Paul, 
 That if of their sins men repent and believe, 
 They shall of their sins full remission receive. 
 
 •^ 
 
68 
 
 So the Anglioan church, "ahsolution** annonnces 
 The condition on which the priest there pronounces 
 Bemission of sins ; if men truly repent 
 And gladly with faith to Christ's gospel consent. 
 Still some may conceive that Christ's words here refer 
 To those gifts of miraculous healings which were 
 Conferred on the early disciples— inspired 
 By Christ's Spirit and teaching— if such were required 
 For the good of the Church. Thus, as Christ before said, 
 Which is easier to say, •' thy sins I forgive " 
 Or thy misery sin-linked, I hereby relieve. 
 To the Apostles he gave, too, the right to immesh 
 In the toils of the Devil, *• to punish the/esA " 
 That " the ioul might be saved " by such descipline strong, 
 For •' whom God loves he chastens," not sparing the thong. 
 Then on the sick bed men have time to reflect 
 And 80 by repentance their foe may eject 
 From his seat in the soul. In this way they forgave 
 And retained human sins on this sids of the gave. 
 
 But our moderns declare that they have at the hour 
 Of death and before, to forgive sin the power, 
 Yea, move priestly still is their claim, for the Priest 
 In soul as in body must ne^r be missed, 
 For he is the centre round which all revolves 
 The authority single on whom it devolves 
 To " remit and retain." But so intertwined 
 With the soul of the Priest is his act, that to bind 
 To his words his ''intention " is needed, else when 
 He utters the words, *' I absolve thee," e'en then 
 No one is absolved, unless with the words 
 Of the Priest of the hour his priest's purpose accords, 
 And this of all sacraments too is the law 
 They are naught if they're crossed by this fracturing flaw. 
 
 This doctrine of Priests first held by a few. 
 Like leaven soon spread till the whole leavened grew. 
 And priest-saturation was thorough all through. 
 Yet Priests have been scoffers, some sunk too so low 
 That it might not their will be or heed to bestow 
 This VIS VIVA, intention, which is as the soul 
 To the bread-eucharistic, giving life to the whole. 
 But if the effects, which these priests claim to flow 
 In grace sacramental, to "intention" they owe, 
 I ask how can any one possibly know, 
 Who, if any, are priests ; what are sacrament chen/ 
 And what Leo, his Bishops, and Priests, but . «*ymen. 
 
64 
 
 For at ordination who is there can say, 
 
 If ''intention" was active the grace to convey, 
 
 But we can't compensate for a prior link gone 
 
 By links thousand-told to the end added on. 
 
 But this power that is claimed to remit or retain 
 
 Was not spoke to Rome's priests of to-day, it is plain, 
 
 But to Christ's own Apostles, Christ-taught and inspired, 
 
 And especially so, as their mission required. 
 
 But if any priest deems he can so sin forgive 
 
 As to cause the sick man or the dying to live, 
 
 Let him do so by all means. To so forgive sin, 
 
 As Christ to the cripple, will our sympathies win. 
 
 As with Ignorance crass blind credulity grows. 
 So, at his priest's word, men are pardoned he knoivs — 
 But to KNOW and to think, are not words that transpose. 
 
 You have seen what Lord Acton has said is the view 
 Of the Catholic Church as regards me and you, 
 Though scarce pleasant whp^t's writ there, yet alas 'tis too true — 
 And now in the van of this church of the pope 
 The Jesuit standc the great bulwark and hope. 
 By one Province welcomed, adopted, endowed, 
 And endorsed by our own House demented or coj^red, 
 While our Governor deems them a quite decent folk* . j 
 Nor said what he said by the way of a joke, . ,1 
 
 Nor the least with a purpose our ire to provoke, ^ ?' 
 
 But just with a view to enlighten the mind 
 Of our Cavens and Smiths — such small deer — when they find 
 What's Lord Stanley's opinion which, as his, must all bind, 
 For to him in clear thinking they lag leagues behind. 
 But possibly 'twas not Lord Stanley at all, 
 But only the Statesman, as viceroy, in thrall 
 To his office as Govarnor General, who. 
 As Sir John and Sir John had bidden him to. 
 Spoke for them not himself. As Lenthal of all, 
 As the mouth of the House, spoke but as he was told. 
 But the Jesuit is not at liberty to 
 Obey the Queen's laws, for his head-centre, too. 
 Has laws of his own which he's bound to obey, 
 And the Pope's laws as well, though these laws, they say, 
 Are the same; yet the Queen's laws all bless 
 With freedom of conscience, free speech, a free pre^s. 
 And freedom of worship ; but these they declare 
 A crime to he punished by law everywhere. 
 But only to think they deny us Uie right 
 To test the whole thing in a fair stand up fight, 
 
\ 
 
 In the Courti of the land. 'Tis enough to provoke 
 
 Men to buckle their swords on to break their vile yoke. 
 
 In the Empire of England the Jesuits are now 
 
 A non-legal society ; why then such a row 
 
 About disallowance, while the laws unrepealed 
 
 Still stand out against them ; their bad past, too, revealed 
 
 By the clear light of history ; their Pope, too, constrained 
 
 To abolish the order because it had gained 
 
 Such a vile reputation 'mongst men of all creeds. 
 
 Because sowing broadcast 'mongst all men the seeds 
 
 Of their terrible principles ; their intrigues so unblest ; 
 
 Their bad ways and works all pursued with such zest,* 
 
 Though seldom forgetful to feather their own nest. 
 
 But Pope Clement at length, though with much grief of soul ^ 
 
 Determined to make a clear sweep of the whole, 
 
 And he made it, and died the year after, as he 
 
 Himself had foretold, 'tis averred, it would be. 
 
 And what is this thing but a legalized fraud. 
 
 When the laws of the realm make such half-outlawed, 
 
 What ! Incorporate such men, if this be the case, 
 
 Forthwith should we not from our statutes efface 
 
 The Jesuits' Estates Act, to our codes a disgrace ? 
 
 But the wise ones who rule ua declare that their "Act" 
 
 Is valid in law and must, so, stand intact. 
 
 So said they before, but 'twas shown by the court, 
 
 That law constitutional scarce was their forte. 
 
 Let them try it again. Not they ! For why face 
 
 An ordeal new with new chance of disgrace, 
 
 Perhaps, with the certainty, they may believe. 
 
 Then, why should they do so, sore hearts to relieve, 
 
 When by doing it they might upset the whole thing 
 
 And on their own heads a catastrophe bring. 
 
 That "Act of Elizabeth" might cause them grief ; 
 
 And from that, which to Catholics granted relief 
 
 The Jesuit clan was excepted. But how 
 
 See page 64. 
 
 * "The moral of the Jesuit's story," writes Thackeray, "I think as wholesome 
 a one as ever was writ ; the artfuUcst, the wisest, the most toilsome and 
 dexterous plot-builders in the world— there always comes a day when the roused 
 public indignation kicks their flimsy edifice down. . . . One day Gulliver 
 rouses himself, shakes off the little vermin of an enemy, and walks away un- 
 molested." And Thackeray was no stern foe of Popery. I do not place too 
 much reliance, however, on historical precedent: still Thackeray and Lord 
 Stanley stand whole leagues apart in their judgments of these men. 
 
 .^■<ti-f 
 
/ 
 
 66 
 
 The party who chn^sfs to the "Syllabus" bow 
 ,To the laws of the Empire the Guibord case shows, 
 And what an intolerant spirit towards those 
 Who differ from them in opinion. The woes 
 Of the great unseen world are those of the foes 
 Of the Catholic church, so self-titled ; but what 
 Does that matter to us ? But we likewise have got 
 To burn down here— that's tue rub— wuen the hour 
 Arrives when the Pope's reinvested with power. 
 
 As in the first ages the Pagans reproached 
 The church with the different doctrines then broached ; 
 For the different sects was their argument plain 
 That a faith so uncertain must certainly wane. 
 Though creeds are in themselves less an end than a mean 
 To hft the mind Christward and keep the heart clean, 
 By one noble example in life's fiercest fight 
 To so sweeten men's souls by the Christ-love of right. 
 That in doing and loving they only find their delight, 
 To this even creeds are subordinate quite. 
 For when held by a mere intellectual grip. 
 Crammed into the head and confessed by the lip, 
 What its ethical value I fail to perceive, 
 If the devils themselves, while they hate, yet believe ? 
 E'en cree'ds only lead us to goodness, their end, 
 And are lovely and true just as this they subtend. 
 St. Paul with this view taught men might be so free 
 As in non-essentials be not bound to agree. 
 
 As it was, so it is ; now the Fapist objects 
 That the Protestant church is cut up into sects. 
 Then to which should he go, if he left his own church, ^ 
 Is he bound through them all to continue his search. 
 Lest, alas, in the end he be left in the lurch ? 
 As if it were of vital moment that he 
 With this phase or that should exactly agree, 
 When assured that, ** on faith and repentance," the soul 
 That with honesty seeks cannot miss the true goal ; 
 Here is no peradventure ; this, this is as sure 
 As that justice and truth shall forever endure. 
 
 To assert that all christians of the century first 
 Or the centurv after were uncursed — or e'en cursed, 
 As some might regard it— by one rigid belief 
 Is a fictional statement that must come to grief. 
 For 'twould be to assert what is simply, in sooth, 
 The converse exact of historical truth. 
 Yea, in the first age of the church we recall 
 
67 
 
 How ** one saith Tm of Peter, another of Paul." 
 But, what of the men ? **Christ the Lord is of all," 
 And Peter is "nothing" not Paul — only hands 
 Whom God wills to employ to fulfil his commands. 
 
 He would be a bold man who'd venture to say, 
 That Justin the creed held the Pope holds to-day. 
 Though perhaps as dogmatic to lay down the law 
 As to what constituted each terrible flaw, 
 In the creed of so many, which shuts out from heaven, 
 Smce so fatally mixed up with heretic leaven. 
 
 Then there's the Greek church (which grew up side by side, 
 From the earliest times with the Roman), whose pride 
 In her "orthodox" doctrines quite equals her own, 
 Deeming Rome a schismatic^ while she stands alone, « 
 
 The old orthodox church of the world and, so, boasts 
 Of her age and her ancestry, and Ler vast hosts 
 Of millions on millions. But what of the brag 
 Of unity, numbers, and age, if the gag 
 Is put on the lips of enquiry, and there 
 Men believe the Greek church, but the Roman church here, 
 'Tis but what they're bom to ; and just as they speak 
 Italian or Russian, they're Roman or Greek. 
 The faith's taken on trust. But, 'mongst Protestants, all 
 To examine the records are free ; while St. Paul 
 Allows men to differ ; nor need any dread 
 That the bolt of church vengeance will fall on his head 
 To maim or destroy. 
 
 But we must not forget ^'^■ 
 
 That what has been won from the past is a debt 
 We owe to the future. For outspoken thought, . , l^. 
 So oft by the wise and the generous taught, 
 As the lever to lift the poor atrophied soul, 
 Is ij right sacrosanct, to be handed down whole, ^ 
 
 Yea, with interest too — the best means to ensure 
 The judgment alona which free souls can endure. 
 
 Disproportionate stress, though, on creeds is oft laid. 
 While to our own souls less attention is paid. 
 Thus, men will be cruel in heart and in deed. 
 In spite of their so boasted orthodox creed : 
 Yes, he who treats lightly Christ's plainest commands. 
 No scruple yet feels in imbruing his hands 
 In the blood of a brother, e'en though he should plead 
 'Twere impossible to him to alter his creed. 
 For, whatever his efforts he could not succeed — 
 Is ready too often his sword to unsheath 
 
68 
 
 In behalf of each clause of his ready-made faith — 
 A faith which he did not by searching acquire. 
 But an heirloom descended to him from his sire, 
 A haphazard belief, which, if false or if true, 
 * Is less to enquiry than accident due. 
 
 Let a man but lie passive that truth may impress 
 Its own lesson on him. Still he should none the less, 
 While he keeps his soul pure, enquire, study and try 
 To attain needful truth ; then, may he rely 
 That no judgment of Heaven against him shall lie, 
 And whose sins ** on repentance and faith," God releases 
 The Pope may retain them or not, as he pleases. 
 
 But 'twixt Presbyterians and Episcopals''' what 
 Does the difference come to ? The Baptists have got 
 % Their own special belief which truly comes not 
 
 To much, (in the wide christian mmd of a Paul,) 
 While the Methodists' creed scarcely differs at all 
 iTrom these, or from those who are called or who call 
 Themselves Independents. In the days of St. Paul — 
 For a happy return of which many sigh — 
 It was not required that all see eye to eye.f ' ' 
 
 I shDuld like to hear Socrates question the Pope, 
 On what his pretentions were built ; to show up 
 The whole thing with its cobweby evidence such 
 That it could not endure his least questioning touch. .- 
 " Thou art Peter " I doubt would to him scarcely show 
 That Peter, long turned into dust, was Leo . 
 
 Of long centuries after. For how do you " .biou? " 
 That Leo is Peter more than Peter Leo ? .^ 
 
 To build on assumptions, or fly to and fro v- 
 
 On the pinions of fancy is not, Man, to know. 
 For to know and to think from one root scarcely grow. 
 
 LEO. 
 
 ' But Peter was Bishop twenty-five years of Rome, 
 
 Of the Catholic church, the proud fortress and home. 
 
 SOCRATES. 
 
 But where are the proofs ? Why we're told by St. Paul 
 That himself its Apostle was, not Peter at all ? 
 But twenty-five years ! 'Tis apocryphal quite, 
 Nor can you for this one contemporary cite. 
 But if the first link of the chain has been thus 
 Struck off from the others, why make any fuss 
 About euch a matter as cannot abide 
 
 *I mean, those who hold the 39 articles, honestly interpreted. 
 tRomans xiv. 
 
Any critical test, St Paul setting aside 
 
 The St. Peter claim.* But when Peter obtained 
 
 From Christ that authority in the text named, 
 
 Not a word or a hint is anywhere given 
 
 Of a Peter successor as such, and you're driven 
 
 To Fad straits indeed, when from this you deduce 
 
 The whole baleful system of Papal abase. i 
 
 But 'tis wonderful how an authority grows, :^ 
 
 And how easily most men are led by the nose 
 
 In matters religious. Joe Smith found a book. 
 
 Its authority settled can scarce now be shook. 
 
 For this truth written large on our annals we find 
 
 Habit dominates men, making fools of mankind. 
 
 Still the pope is St. Peter ! This dinned in his ears. 
 From childhood to manhood, unquestioned appears 
 To the Papist firm fact. True, Protestants hold 
 A quite different doctrine, but then he is told ' 
 
 That he is a heretic going straightway 
 To a place that's not good as he'll find out some day. 
 
 % 
 
 * Irenceus, who lived in the 2rd century, and whom Romanists will scarce 
 question as an authority, tells us not that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, 
 but that Linus wiis, having been made bishop not even by Peter, but by the joint 
 agency of Peter and Paul. " These two glorious apostles," says he, '* who found- 
 ed the church at Rome, madt. Linus biahop ; to him succeeded Anacletus ; after 
 him, in the third place frQm the Apostles, came Clement." " To him they hand- 
 ed over (tradiderunt) the episcopate." Now, if it was handed over by them, it 
 was not theirs, but his. And V^alesins, a learned Catholic, frankly admits, that 
 *' Irenceus does not reckon them (Peter and Paul) in the order of Bishops.^' The 
 tradition, as hetd by Irenceus, is explicit as to Linus being the first bishop of 
 Rome. Not that I think tradition is nmch to lie relied on, and especially 
 perhaps with regard to Peter — one tradition telling us that Peter was crucified 
 with his head downwards, another that his head was struck off with the sword. 
 Again, one tradition avers that his famous reported encounter, (and such an en- 
 counter,) with Simon Magus took place in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, an- 
 other that it was in that of the Emperor Nero. There was also a late tradition, 
 that Ptter was tor twenty-five years bishop of Rome, but there is not a scrap of 
 real evidence to support it. Euscbius (4th century) informs us that, as to " who 
 took chaige of the churches '' founded by Peter and Paul, " it is not ea-^y to say^ 
 except such and so many as may be collected from the words of st. pacl" ; 
 and that he, Euscbius, when collecting his early facts, had to tread a solitary and 
 untrodden way, and could no where find the hare ateps of any who had passed the 
 same path before, excepting only some signs and tokens which divers here and 
 there have left us." But if this searcher after authentic history had a poor time 
 of it, tradition ran. fairly riot. Paul, we know, had lived v.i Rome ; but whether 
 Peter had ever put his foot in it, who can say. Eusebius' " Words oj St. Paul " 
 and the whole ]New Testament lifts not the veil here of unpenetrable silence. 
 This seems strange, if the Apostle of the jews had ever been there. Still, from 
 the Romanist point of view, the fitness of things made it a necessity that he 
 should have been there : Hence that he was there ; and, to crown the edifice, 
 that he was there as its bishop for a whole twenty-five years. Great is tradition. 
 
 \ 
 
70 
 
 This creed at his dear mother's knees he receives, 
 And, stamped on the young childish fancy, believes, 
 And, since few men dare think for themselves, he goes on 
 Believing as vaguely as he would have done. 
 Had he been a Mohammedan, Mormon or Thug. 
 Then, his creed to his heart he would equally hug. 
 
 '* You are Peter," said Christ, ''on this rock'' you confess 
 I will build up my church here, against which no stress 
 Of Devils or men shall avail to confine 
 My people in Hades, when I shall assign 
 Their hour of release ; and to you I consign 
 The keys of my kingdom, that you may define 
 The binding condition of faith which admits 
 To my kingdom, no less than what conduct befits 
 My genuine subjects, and what's so defined, ■ 
 As though uttered in Heaven, shall equally bind. 
 But no word of successor so seized is throughout 
 Either spoken or hinted ; thus putting to rout 
 The Romish assertion, that Leo to-day 
 Has the power given Peter to say or unsay. 
 Inspired as he was the whole truth to portray. 
 But presumption^ assumption, pretention go far, 
 If \ ersisted in loudly and often, to mar 
 The logic of truth. But, whatever men say, 
 On this solid foundation my church I willilay — 
 On this Peter's confession, this rock, this Petra. 
 Nor is this a Protestant gloss, for of eld 
 By "Fathers" and "Saints" of the church it was held. 
 •'On this rock" St. Theodore writes (and with force) 
 *' That is, on its Peter's confession, of course." 
 " What means on this rock," writes St. Basil, *' but this — 
 On this faith of St. Peter's confession. It is 
 This avowal of faith which Christ named the rock.'' 
 That is destined forever to stand 'gainst the shock 
 Of Devils and men. So Jacobus also : 
 Likewise the great Gregory " Petra didit Petro 
 The Sceptre I Peter now give Rudolpho," 
 While Dion, Garth, too, interprets it so, 
 
 " On this rock you've confessed now, or, what means the sar-JiO, 
 '* On myself the chief corner stone." This, then, we claim 
 With those fathers and others to be the true sense ; 
 St. Gregory further completes the defence 
 Of these Fathers' decision, by laying it down, 
 As a rule, that " Petra, when met as a noun 
 " In the singular number, has in every case 
 
 I 
 
 M 
 
71 
 
 The one meaning, " Christ," which we may not debase 
 
 By mixing with Peter ; for no mortal may 
 
 Any other foundation than only Christ lay," 
 
 But to Protestants how does it matter at all 
 
 Whether built upon Peter or built upon Paul ? 
 
 Whatever the meaning affects them not at all ; 
 
 If built upon Peter, it simply means this. 
 
 That he a great pillar of christian truth is, 
 
 A ciiief stone in the great christian edifice, 
 
 Which has twelve foundations, which, as St. John proclaims, 
 
 Of the dozen apostles of Christ bore the names ; 
 
 But whoever was first in the building — first stone — 
 
 The building itself rests on Jesus alone. 
 
 Now, WERE Peter first bishop of Rome with the right, 
 Unconditioned by aught in ourselves, clear as light. % 
 
 To bind and to loose, to retain and remit 
 The sins of each man, why infer it, that it — 
 This power so tremendous— descends to each priest, 
 And to Bishop, and Pope, althouyh not the least 
 Intinuition is given that such auful power 
 Should from hand to hand pass, a perpetual dower, 
 
 E'en Bellarmine, — a Jesuit and most out and out 
 Foremost champion of popery, holding throughout 
 A first or the first place 'mongst those, the most bold 
 The highest pretensions of Popes to uphold, — , 
 
 Tells us " Bishops do not to Apostles succeed 
 *♦ Who were of a different order indeed, " ' 
 
 •• Not ordinary, but extra-ordinary, 
 " To whom no successors, as such, were to be ; 
 ** That the pontiff does not in any right sense 
 •'To Peter succeed — This is not the pretence— ^ 
 
 " Not to Peter, that is, the apostle as such 
 *' But as ordinary pastor of the whole church."* 
 
 But the truth is the all in all, not whence it comes. 
 From a Vatican priest or a child of the slums. 
 From a Leo, or Luther, or Knox ; for we hold, 
 At whatever mint struck, gold always is gold. 
 So a truth is a truth and its true inner worth 
 Is enhanced not by any succession on earth ; 
 While •' vain genealogies " which to seed run 
 
 * Perhaps, I had best here quote the very vvords, '* Ronvanus Pontifex proprie 
 auceedit Petro, non ut Apostolo, sed ut pastori ordioario totius EcclesioB, et ideo 
 ab illo habet Romanus Pontifex jurisdictionem, a quo habuit Petrus ; at Episcopi 
 non succedunt proprie Apostolis, quoniam Apostoli non fuerunt ordinarii sed ex- 
 traordiaarii, et quasi delegati pastores, qualibus non succeditur." 
 
72 
 
 With profitless fruitage, Paul bids us to shun. 
 
 But there really is no secure ground to show 
 
 That Peter was ever in Rome, while we know 
 
 That the Roman apostolate was not at all 
 
 St. Peter's, but fell to the lot of St. Paul ^ 
 
 Bij division of labor. Hence while Peter writes 
 
 No special epistle to Rome, Paul indites 
 
 To Rome and the whole gentile church his grand charge. 
 
 But I must on this subject now no further enlarge 
 
 Hence Rome's church built on Peter of all men — the pith 
 
 Of Rome's argument here— looks half like a myth, 
 
 A survival somehow of the old kin and kith. 
 
 But when the Jews once, through their Abram descent, 
 Claimed the favor of heaven, the Baptist soon rent 
 Their web of presumption. What avails your descent ? 
 You shall all of you perish unless you repent ; 
 For no Abram descent, nor succession on earth. 
 Can bestow on the soul such a savor of worth, 
 As entitles to Heaven. 'Tis only the soul 
 Through honest endeavour, that reaches that goal. 
 
 Succession holds good as a matter, 'tis true, 
 Of order external, and this with a view 
 To promote useful ends, but not vital thereto. 
 But where such is employed as a substitute whole , 
 
 For the Abram spirit insouled in the soul, 
 'Tis a pestilent doctrine. As John told the Jews, 
 What can such avail if his ways you refuse. , . 
 Nor is Godhead reduced to only one course, . . > . . 
 But may on the stones of the Jordan enforce 
 His sovereign will, and when we refuse 
 To obey his behests, other instruments choose — 
 If the children of Abram reject Abram's ways, 
 The stones of the Jordan would break into praise. t.i - 
 
 For what ! Should the men of succession forget 
 The teachings of Christ and his doctrines upset. 
 Putting darkness for light, with reproach to his name, 
 Musi no Wycliffe arise, no Luther cry shame. 
 Whether in the succession or not all the same. 
 Christianity's not a religion of charms 
 Whatever it be — a religion that arms 
 A great priest-caste with power, to bar or unbar 
 The portals of Heaven, and so make or mar 
 The future of each. But the scriptures proclaim 
 
 * Gal. XI : 7-9. 
 
 r 
 
7B 
 
 Everywhere through repeDtauce and faith in Christ name, 
 
 Through the goodness of God, every man's fullest claim 
 
 To the mercy of Heaven, while Peter and Paul 
 
 Of their priest-inteirention no hint give at all. 
 
 'Tis a poor trumped up story, a cunning device, 
 
 That grew up in the church, in times not overwise, 
 
 By little, and little, but once wholly unknown 
 
 As insisted on now by the statutes of Home. 
 
 •* Ye are," says St. Peter, addressing the church, 
 
 ••A priesthood" yourselves, and in vam do we search 
 
 For a priest, Hiereus, who apart from the whole 
 
 Stands a go-between special 'twixt 'rod and the soul ; 
 
 For the doctrme of Paul '* one God is and one 
 
 Mediator" : but one, in the system of Kome, 
 
 In process of time into hundreds has grown. 
 
 But if none who are not of Rome's church, as we're told, 
 
 Can be saved ; are the Greeks then shut out of the fold. 
 
 With their millions on millions in centuries past. 
 
 And even to-day living multitudes vast, 
 
 Yet from such a conclusion the mind turns aghast. 
 
 To damn men because they believe what they must. 
 
 By the law of conditions, believe, were not just. 
 
 Yet to justice our judgment we're bound to adjust. 
 
 Then leave all to the sentence of him who knows all, 
 
 Without and within us, as urged by St. Paul. 
 
 Now, although the New Testament's silent as to \ ^ 
 
 Peter's Roman episcopate ; early Fathers the view 
 
 Held largely that Linus stood first on the roll 
 
 Of the Bishops of Rome ; while the proofs on the whole 
 
 Lean to the conclusion, that to Linus succeed 
 
 Anacl^tus, then Clemens ; but who base their creed , 
 
 On successions not truth, lean on a weak reed ; 
 
 For Augustine, Ruffinus — by others backed too — .• . ' 
 
 Put Clemens next Linus, while some hold the view 
 
 That ♦^^hese — Anacletus and Cletus - were two 
 
 As in the succession of Bishops they're found, 
 
 And hence, in their thinking, they never confound 
 
 The names as though one ; while others maintain 
 
 Anacletus and Cletus to be the one name. 
 
 The third bishop of Rome, Ireiioeus declares, 
 
 Eusebius too, was Clemens, which squares 
 
 With the general verdict, while but two went before — 
 
 Anacletus and Linus. But whv, on the score 
 
 Of Peter unbishoped, should any feel sore ? 
 
 Was not he an apostle, set over the Jew, 
 
 \ 
 
74 
 
 By special commission appointed thereto ^ 
 
 The great Hebrew apostle ; while Pauls special care 
 
 Was the Gentile, hence Roman, as all are aware 
 
 Who study bis writings to learn what is there. 
 
 Peter was not the apostle of Rome, then, at all, 
 
 Nor e'en its first bishop ; its apostle was Paul, 
 
 Its first bishop was Linus, but tradition is such • 
 
 And unsteady guide that we cannot place much 
 
 Reliance upon it. Nor must we here miss 
 
 The curious old story, so curious it is, 
 
 That St. Peter went chiefly to Rome to oppose 
 
 (So runs the tradition — the '* fama " that grows 
 
 As it passes from this lip to that evermore) 
 
 To oppose Simon Magus — great Rome to the fore 
 
 And its Caesar, famed Nero — at which interview 
 
 Through the air by the power of the Devil he flew, 
 
 Till Peter invokmg his Lord, broke the power 
 
 Of the terrified Devil ; and they show to this hour, 
 
 All doubts to remove, in the city of Rome, 
 
 The prints of his knees where he prayed on the stone. 
 
 And another still red with the blood of this foe 
 
 Of Christ, who on falling his legs broke ; for so , 
 
 Traditional stories lose naught as they go. 
 
 With other men's conduct we trouble oft take, , > , 
 
 As Christ of the Scribes and the Pharisees spake, 
 " Ye BIND heavy burdens and grievous to bear 
 To lay on men's shoulders, but your owr shoulders spare." 
 Here we see what was meant by '* bin li.g," which so 
 May its light on the " binding " in Pelci's case throw. 
 'Mongst the Jews what was lawful or not, Lightfoot says, 
 To bind or to loose was the equivalent phrase,. 
 Thus the student of Rabbi-lore such phrases finds 
 As " the Hillel school looses ; the Shimmei school binds." 
 As an instance again ; '* he asked one and he bound, 
 Another ask not, lest to loose he be found ; " 
 For so much uncertainty reigned all around.* 
 
 * " The phrase to bind and to loose was often used by the Jews. It meant to 
 prohibit and to permit. To bind a thing was to forbid it ; to loose it, to allow it 
 to be done. Thus they said about gathering wood on the Sabbath day. ' The 
 school of Shammei binds it,' i.e., forbids it ; ' the school of Hihel looses it,' i.e , 
 allows it." — Barnes. 
 
 Jewish scholars diflfered as to whether certain things were obligatory or not, 
 one body holding that they were, others that they were not. If one school of 
 thought says, they are binding ; then, says he, don't apply to anothery or it may 
 affirm the contrary. But in the school :f Christ is to be no see -sawing. Whatso- 
 ever (not whomsoever) you, Peter, inspired by my spirit, shall lay down respect- 
 
75 
 
 But Peter was authorized here to declare 
 The FAITH and the morals that now everywhere 
 Are binding on men, and to loose or relieve 
 From the burden of things that might otherwise grieve 
 The poor morbid conscience, and so makes it plain 
 What christians may do, and from what must abstain. 
 Hence to whom but to these should the christian man go 
 If he would the true faith and its morals, too, know, 
 For these 'twas their writings were purposed to show. 
 Let us follow the course then, of Peter, to see 
 What light we can get from his practice ; how he 
 Eegarded his Christ-given gift of the keys, 
 Of bindirg and loosing and how it agrees 
 With the dogma of personal power to remit 
 All sins whatsoever, with power to transmit 
 This doiver to successors, which reason revolts, 
 But which, wholesale with eyes shut, the Romish church bolts. 
 
 ,Wheu the kingdom of Heaven he unlocked to the Jews, 
 Repentance and Faith were the keys which he used. 
 And when to the Gentiles the same he unlocked 
 In the tenth of " The Acts " the same doctrine he talked. 
 Thus we learn what the keys were to Peter then given. 
 And how with them he opened the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 It is not *' I absolve thee," for I have the keys, 
 And can by my power loose or bind as I please, 
 But this '* through Christ's name all they who believe 
 •* In him, the remission of sins shall receive " — 
 A declarative act, of authority sure, . 4^ 
 
 Of how a remission of sins to procure, . - 
 
 By " repentance and faith'' — the keys that unlock - 
 
 The door to the Gentile and old Jewish stock — ^ ^ 
 
 By " repentance and faith," the road open to all, v .;-. -, 
 The one highway to Heaven of Peter and Paul. 
 
 Shaken from his Jew's faith, said Peter, " I see ^ .. r^ 
 
 " God is no respector of persons, but he,* 
 •' Of what nation soever who fears God and does right, 
 *' Is acceptable to him." • < 
 
 Act 
 
 ing doctrine or conduct as of binding obligation, shall have the sanction of heaven, 
 and whatsoever you shall declare permissible siiall have the same sanction and 
 (for these words were spoken to the other disciples as well. Matt xviii : 1, 18) 
 where are we to find what Peter and the disciples taught regarding those 
 binding doctrint8 and morals, but in what they wrote and spoke. 
 
76 
 
 To this we invite 
 Particular notice. He no where affirms 
 Your sins I remit, but he lays down the terms — 
 Repentance and faith — the conditions alone 
 Which entitle to pardon through him who hath won 
 This pardon now offered to every one, 
 Who, accepting the terms, will make it his own. 
 So at Pentecost, too, the same doctrines he taught, 
 For such web-and-woof in his soul were inwrought. 
 This his practical comment on "whose ains ye remit" 
 On " Repentance and Faith," as 'tis everywhere writ, 
 The sole title to pardon. Hut who can believe 
 That one " in mortal sin," as Rome says'-S can forgive 
 Another his sms whatsoever they be, 
 And that such stands forgiven by Heaven's decree, 
 For whose sins ye remit are remitted, while his 
 Whose sins ye retain is excluded from bliss. 
 But should some vile Borgia possessed of this right < 
 
 Mortals' sins to retain, resolved to requite 
 Some foe that he hated, who smilingly led 
 To believe that the dead past had buried its dead, 
 And that now they were friends, although the true state 
 Of the heart of the priest was still rancorous hate ; 
 And if *' THE INTENTION," whatever the words , 
 Bars the grace which the priest's absolution affords. 
 Then, though using the wor.^s, may he shut out from grace 
 And send the poor soul to a very bad place ? 
 And if, in articulo mortis, ho can 
 
 Absolution withhold from a sin-stricken man, ' . " 
 
 And if what is bound or is loosed by the priest 
 Is endorsed by high heaven, why need he desist 
 From his purpose of hate. Let him die and be damned, 
 
 •The Council of Trent decreed thus : "Whoever shall affirm that a minister who 
 IS in a state of mortal sin does not perforin or confer a sacrament ... let 
 him be accursed." Again, "whoever shall afhrtn that when ministers perform and 
 confer a sacrament, it is not necessary that they should have at least the intention 
 of doing what the church does; let him be accursed." The Priest must be 
 exalted. Without his "intention" to confer sacramental grace it cannot be 
 conferred ; and, bo, the act is ineffectual. If then, when cenferring the sacra- 
 ment of orders, the intention (say, of John XXIII or of Alexander VI, or of any 
 ordaining bishops) was absent or purposely and perversely omitted, ichat becomes 
 of the succession, or how do they know that there is any succession. 
 
 The Decree of the Council of Florence affirms that "all the sacraments are per- 
 fected by three things, namely, by things as to the m,atter ; by words as to the 
 form ; and by the person of the administrator who confers the sacrament, with 
 the INTENTION of doing what the church does, of which, if any be wanting, the 
 sacrament is not perfected." 
 
77 
 
 What care I for him, when I hold the trump-hand, 
 
 And can for my sins absolution obtain 
 
 From some gentle priest whom my prayers will constrain. 
 
 For 'mongst men there are fiends who torture, impale, 
 Roast slowly their victims, and murder wholesale, 
 Pull the flesh oflf with pincers, and gouge out the eyes, 
 And derisively mock at their agonized cries. 
 'Tis awful to think that such monsters can be. 
 But by reading the annals of mankind we see 
 How cruel are men, how deeply ingrained 
 In the nature of some, when their fury's unchained 
 By absence of fear, is their undying hate, 
 Goading on to their ends as relentless as fate. 
 'Twere a horrible thought that such creatures could bind 
 Or remit by a word the sins of mankind. 
 It seems so upsetting that God should intrust 
 Such prerogative power to a creature of dust. 
 That he should commit men for weal or for woe, 
 By a fate so terrific, to creatures so low 
 In huw^viity's scale. And are these men, the curse 
 Of the world — what demons, almost, could be worse. 
 As narrated to us of age after age . . i 
 
 By Romanist writers on page after page — . 
 Men red-handed in crime, besmirched, leprous, so vile, 
 That scarce aught that they touched could they fail to defile, 
 Are these the sole means through whom sins are forgiven 
 And the sin-defiled soul a place win in heaven. 
 And are these the channels, the creatures alone 
 By whom can be made Bishops, although 'tis well known. 
 Their Sees have been purchased oft by wicked men, 
 But what matters by whom, or on whom bestowed, when 
 The succession is kept, and the charm descends. 
 And Bishops and Popes gain their several ends. 
 
 But what of Religion ! Is it not a rare 
 Tropic flower of the heart to be tended with care 
 And not a mere giving and getting affair ? 
 
 Do we blame the plain people, who, hold what they hold, 
 As the doctrine of Jesus — this dross as pure gold ! 
 Do I blame the good Nuns, who, devotedly true 
 To their chosen ideal, life's pleasures eschew. 
 Do I blame e'en the Priests who because they're so told 
 Believe it their dutv to cleave to the old, 
 As though what they teach was as old as is what 
 Had been in the first christian centuries taught ; 
 Or, earlier still, by both Peter and Paul, 
 
 N, 
 
78 
 
 And by Christ himself the great fountain of all. 
 
 Our blame 's not for them ; 'tis the system we blame, 
 
 Of this ago of the world, the crown of her shame, 
 
 With her terror for any who dare disagree 
 
 With whatever 's laid down by the great Roman See. 
 
 Mistake me not here. For there were, it is true, 
 Good priests, and good bishops, and saints not a few. 
 But w4iy driven to sjmething so wholly absurd. 
 So tremendous an issue, while yet from the word 
 Appealed to by all, no proof c&n be brought, 
 That this doctrine, with issue so fearful, was taught. 
 
 Say, to Peter and others Christ gave special powers, 
 But, if given to them, on what ground are they ours, 
 Unless so provided by special entail 
 In language so clear that no mortal can faii'^ 
 With honest intention, their meaning to read, 
 And not have on assumption to base such a cr'^ed. 
 But, by binding or loosing whatever was meant, 
 Not a word is here spoken of any descent, 
 Or hint even given of such an intent ; 
 Hence it goes by dcfitult that if there *s no heir 
 To powers so ixemQwAon^- declared anywhere. 
 That the words by Christ spoken to those who stood by 
 Their Lord at the last, when inspired from on high 
 Through his spirit breathed on them, were not spoke to those 
 Who to-day by their teachings his teachings oppose. 
 So whatever these powers were, bestowed upon those 
 First disciples of Christ whose teaching so shows, 
 As a whole, in a practical way that they meant, i 
 
 V' 
 
 •Christ, we read, when in the g'eat tennple of Jerusalem, said, " destroy this 
 temple and in three days I will raise it up again." The Jews naturally, as 
 would you and I, understood him to mean the stone and mortar temple in which 
 they then were. But St. John tells us we should have been mistaken, for that he 
 spoke not of it, but of the temple of his own body. An<l ought not this to teach 
 us caution, lest we give such an interpretation of an isolated text as to make it 
 teach a doctrine at variance with the, whole teaching of the New Testament — text 
 piled upon text — and, withal, the most appalling and unbelievable doctrine that 
 was ever broached ; that a man, himself " in mortal sin," can forgive another 
 man his sins, or withhold the forgiveness of them, by uttering the words, "I 
 absolve thee," or by failing to utter them. But the words, as a sine qua non, 
 must be also accompanied by the intention of the forgiving priest (of the time) to 
 perform the sacramental act as the church directs. With the words of the priest 
 must go in some sort the priest's intention, else no forgiveness is. Thus the words 
 uttered convey no certainty that the forgiveness is valid. This might be put 
 much more strongly, but I forbear. 
 
79 
 
 Something wholly opposed to this dogma of Trent.* 
 
 Why affirm that these words (which were spoken to men 
 
 On whom Jesus had hreathed out the spiric just then, 
 
 To enable them, so, without error to state 
 
 The doctrines of truth, and the mornU that mate 
 
 With such holy calling) with like force apply 
 
 To us of to-day not so privileged ? Why 
 
 This assert without joroo/"/ More especially when 
 
 We hold in our hands what wits tniujht />// these men, 
 
 Who could only have taught the same over again. * 
 
 ** Whose sins ye remit " (on repentance and faith j 
 
 •' To them are remitted." As Christ elsewhere saith, 
 
 *' Preach repentance and (consequent) pardon of sins." 
 
 But no pardon the soul that's impenitent wins, 
 
 '♦ And whose sins ye retain are retained," for tcithout 
 
 Repentance a man is from pardon shut out 
 
 Then, as Christ-bid, the Apostles the terras declare, 
 
 Hence forgiveness to all is as free as the air, 
 
 So, to shrive of their sins men, no priest 's needed here, 
 
 And a box for cjnfeseions would sound somewhat queers 
 
 In New Testament writings, if stumbled on there — 
 
 A dull, slimy, wart-coated toad, mid a fair 
 
 Feathered flock of the beautiful tenants of air. 
 
 So startlingly strange would *' confessional " sound. 
 
 If in some new Codex or Palimpsest found 
 
 The *' Confessional '' is a disgrace to the land. 
 
 In Dens' famed theology the questions asked stand, 
 
 In that filthiest text-book that ever was planned, . 
 
 A memorial of all that the prurient mind 
 
 Of the Priest may suggest to his victim to find , , : 
 
 What in the most inward recesses may hide, . ,. 
 
 But which to a man they are bound to confide, ^ 
 
 Be they married or maiden, and though the heart bleed 
 
 *Christ ordained that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in 
 his name' (Luke xxiv, 47). They ever go together. No remittance toithout 
 prior repentance, or, as Peter says, " Repent ye, therefore, that your tins may 
 be blotted out. " It is an order of things that is never changed. Repentance is 
 the very essential pre-rtjquisite to the forgiveness of sins. It is with this consid 
 eration, that Christ says, " Whose sins ye remit {of course, on the prior condi- 
 tion of repentance) shall be remitted, and whose sins (if rejecting this condition) 
 ye retain are retained." This is the simple, christian mode of explaining the 
 text. It is nowhere at variance with the rest of the New Testament teaching, 
 but ia in entire harmony with the subsequent preaching and practice of Peter and 
 Paul. Repentance ia, in fact, implied everywhere where i emission of sins is 
 obtained. The words are declarative of the terms under which forgiveness of 
 sins is secured. 
 
80 
 
 
 
 To lay the soul naked to him, yet the need 
 
 Of his pardon compels them with shame to unveil 
 
 To this unmarried man, pumped or not, all thny feel, 
 
 \\q he good, pious priest, or a wanton, who shames 
 
 The office he holds, and religion defames. 
 
 A reference to the Dens' volume will show. 
 
 That what I have stated is nakedly so. 
 
 Then why should some Anglican priests seek to bring 
 
 Into our so Protestant church this vile thing ? 
 
 Now when men state boldly a thing loud and long. 
 We are driven almost to assume there are strong 
 Grounds for the assertion ; for how could it be 
 All cry and n wool ; yet, on searching, we see 
 There is just noi.iing in it ; assumptions enough 
 Airy castles to build on, but scarcely the stuff 
 From which to be fashioned the creed of mankind ; 
 And what save assumption throughout do we find ? 
 The Chinese, they assume, that the earth rests upon 
 The back of a tortoise. The proofs flre scarce strong, 
 But the premiss conceded concedes they're not wrong. 
 If assumption ^or proofs we're content, then, to take 
 The empire o- opery nothing can shake. 
 But when proofs are demanded the question assumes ' 
 An aspect quite new which that empire foredooms, 
 When the pure light of reason men's darkness illumes. ' 
 
 Now while the chief doctrines are insisted on so 
 Of repentance and faith, and the virtues that grow 
 Out of such in the heart ; yet, wherever we turn, 
 Of successors long future how lilitle we learn, 
 Of their modes of appomtings, as though these were so small 
 When compared with those things of such moment to all. 
 Tis true, as the church grew, there grew out of it 
 The need of church government ; because 'twere scarce fit 
 That the state of affairs which in Corinth we see 
 Should in such confusion continue to be ; 
 Hence was there great need of due order ; and, viewed 
 From this standpoint, it was a procedure for good. 
 When not of the essence of things understood. 
 Let none be too dogmatic. For though it is true 
 That to the good man is sufficient the clue 
 Here given to guide him in practice, where rule 
 And obedience concern him, yet each special school 
 May not bring him such proofs as convince him that they 
 Have such divine rules as he's bound to obey. 
 He may deem that this matter is nou quite so clear 
 
/ 
 
 81 
 
 As it may, from some cause to another appear, 
 
 While the things that concern him chiefly are not 
 
 The particular mode of church-rule, but this, what 
 
 The doctrines and /practice which, in truth, constitute 
 
 Of the christian religion the root and the fruit. 
 
 But the binding or loosing however defined. 
 
 What's th*! ground foi believing that they were confined 
 
 To a priest-caste, when they were the province of all 
 
 The assembly or church, be it ever so small. 
 
 Yea, of e'en ** two or three " ; for if we recall 
 
 The whole scene as a whole (and here it relates 
 
 To men's conduct, not creed) as Christ the thing states 
 
 In the 18th of Matthew. 'Tis in a clear case 
 
 Of WRONG DOING persisted in long, in. the face 
 
 Of effort on effort to make him repent 
 
 Of the wrong he had done ; but since still unbent 
 
 In his obstinate course, the church in that case — 
 
 Meaning thereby, of course, the church in that place — 
 
 Be they many or few, must henceforth treat such 
 
 As a Heathen outsider ; yet not so in the clutch 
 
 Of church power by which to bend or to break 
 
 The man to their will by the rack or the stake. 
 
 But the church 'tis the right has to loose and bind too — 
 
 The church in each place be they many or few — 
 
 Yea ; " where two or three request aught in Christ's name, 
 
 There he is in the midsi to procure them the same." 
 
 Note the binding takes place in the case here sujiposed, 
 Of WRONG being done, and the conscience so closed 
 Agai7ist all advice, th&i the church is vfithout 
 Discretional power, and must, so, put him'^ out ; 
 But should ho sin even to seventy times seven, 
 His sin, if repentant, should still be forgiven. 
 And, though having wandered so oft from the track, 
 By the church be received into membership back. 
 
 Thus the church, few or many, when shaping its course 
 By Christ's prescribed method, its act has the force 
 Of the sancoion of heaven, in such plain case of ivrong 
 Done, and then persisted in, wilfully, long. 
 'Twas a measure of discipline meet to secure 
 The good of the churches by keeping them pure. 
 
 But the church, not the priesthood, as something dispart 
 From the body of christians, of which they're a part, 
 For the church as a whole are the priesthood of God — 
 
 * I Cor. v: 13 ; '* Put away from yourselves that wicked persoj." A case of 
 church discipline. 
 
\ 
 
 82 
 
 And this is a point should be well understood — 
 
 But the church, few or many, it is which excludes 
 
 An impenitent sinner, and the church which includes 
 
 Him again 'mongst themselves, when repentant he bends 
 
 His neck to the yoke, and the mischief so ends.'^ 
 
 Thus what's bindmg and loDsing in this case we see, 
 
 But never can any be bound save when he 
 
 By his own sin precedent, persisted in, shows 
 
 The ill state of his heart which will not depose 
 
 The tyrant within. And the church thus refused > 
 
 His submission to Christ, he cannot be loosed, 
 
 But as an outsider be put from the church. 
 
 Until he repent of his palpable sin, ^^- 
 
 And, so, to the fold be again taken in. 
 
 The apostolate office if intended to be 
 Continued or not, I do not clearly seef 
 From the scriptures or early church history — 
 The elders or bishops, so far as we know. 
 By apostles were always appointed thereto 
 Or by delegates chosen by them to this end. 
 But may not men differ, yet not justly offend ? 
 
 Is religion a matter subordinate quite 
 To this thing of successions, which, if by *'divine right" — 
 Suppose 'twere admitted— must have ended so 
 Again, as the records of Popery show 
 It had ended in fact : for like results flow 
 From like principles, in like conditions, we know. 
 If religion — the soul into harmony brought 
 With the will of the Father's the real end sought, 
 If this end be the essence, the great all in all, 
 The end contemplated by Jesus and Paul, 
 The end for which noblest natures have striven — 
 " Thy will done on earth as it is done in Heaven " ; 
 And if those who seek ever this end to attain 
 The proofs cannot find *'divine right" to sustain 
 Or deem the succession is doubtful or worse, 
 Or as coming through men whose lives were such a curse 
 To the christian profession, they could scarce confer aught, 
 That was Christiauly needful to persons Christ-taught, 
 And who could this succession procure, only by 
 Agreeing to hold what to them were a lie. 
 For creed with its adjuncts, wholesale they must holt. 
 However the soul, unconvinced may revolt, 
 
 • Matt. XVIII: 15-20. 
 
 f Tentative this, with the proi)08ed end of charity. Hear ell sides. 
 
83 
 
 But without such submission must none entertain 
 
 The thought that he can to such office attain. 
 
 Is it writ or inferred, by whom to a See 
 
 An Apostle, named Bishop, appointed should be ; 
 
 And if meant to continue, 'tis strange how the name 
 
 Apostolate dropped out, and, changed for it, came 
 
 Episcopate, e'en if in substance the same. 
 
 Still so it may have been. If so, it were well, 
 
 In order that Christians in harmony dwell, 
 
 And the least intimation obey, to confer, 
 
 In a spirit of love, with each other, and hear » 
 
 What on every side may be urged, and so learn 
 
 No doctrine through prejudiced feeling to spurn. 
 
 But if men by the truth are resolved to abide. 
 
 What good might not come if with minds minds collide, 
 
 But if the Episcopate hold things that mar 
 
 The beauty of truth ; if they hold things that jar 
 
 On an ear that's attuned to the truth ; if they teach 
 
 What clearly they should not ; then, though they shcild preach 
 
 "Or an angel from Heaven" any gospel but what 
 
 Paul preached, they're "Anathema," hence hear them not. 
 
 For though order is needful, yet truth has a worth 
 
 That in value exceeds all the order on earth. 
 
 And if in the creed which a Bishop must sign 
 
 Are made such demands as he's bound to decline 
 
 On scriptural grounds ; may none bishops, then, be 
 
 Save such as can heartily hereto agree ; .y 
 
 And if none be ordained, but such as c.onsent / 
 
 To that which in others breeds whole discontent. 
 
 Is no remedy for it, but that these men must be 
 
 Of the christian religion the sole ministry, 
 
 And if they preach doctrines repugnant to all, 
 
 Who rightly have studied the writings of Paul 
 
 And the other Apostles — preach plain heresy — 
 
 Then are we left wholly without remedy ? • 
 
 And must we leave men to be taught but by those. 
 
 Who so fiercely the teaching of scripture oppose ? ^ 
 
 Thus the question would not of the apostolate be — 
 
 Not a question of simple episcopacy — 
 
 But of it, with a train long or short, and cowpelled 
 
 As an adjunct thereto to he equally held. 
 
 But as Nazianzen (St. Gregory) wrote 
 
 " The succession of piety's the matter that ought 
 
 " To be deemed the true normal succession ; one man 
 
 " May the formal succession possess, but how can 
 
 *' This weigh 'gainst the other who the very thing hath 
 
84 
 
 ** Itself— the succession in deed and in truth." 
 While Bellarmine admits, '* it need not be that where 
 There is a succession, the church also is there." 
 
 And the church, the true church, wherever she's found 
 hi morals and faith constitutionally sound,"^' 
 Is "pillar and stay of the truth" upon earth ; 
 For the church is in essence those whom the "new birth" 
 To goodness and truth make the members thereof, 
 Belonging as such to the church that's above ; 
 Not those whose great boast 'tis their church is so old 
 (Yet Christ's church is older) their creed is pure gold, 
 Though crusted and rusted and coated with mould ; 
 Who, though they be sinners through life, yet believe 
 Their sins at its close the priest can forgive. 
 But the church, truth's strong pillar, is bound to uphold 
 The doctrines of truth and keep tiolves from the fold. 
 "Whoso sins ve remit" no matter what he, 
 If a hardened impenitent, in himself be ; 
 And 'whose sins ye retain" although he be good 
 To the core of his life through the spirit of God, 
 Yet, on " I absolve thee," his sins are forgiven 
 But, the other's retained, he is shut out from ueaven. 
 Rests it then with the priest and not with the man 
 If to enter Christ's kingdom he cannot or can ? 
 For priestly ^'intention'' looms large in Rome's plan. 
 
 But if it means simply this, if the man hath. 
 What the gospel demands, repentance and faith, 
 His sins are forgiven,, it falls in with all 
 That is written throughout by Saint Peter and Paul. 
 That if of their sins men repent, and believe, 
 They shall of their sins the remission receive. 
 
 So the Anglican church "absolution" announces 
 The condition on which the priest there pronounces 
 Remission of sins ; that is, if men repent 
 And gladly with faith to Christ's gospel consent. 
 
 As in the first ages the Pagans reproached 
 The church with the different doctrines then broriched ; 
 For the different sects was their argument plain, 
 That a faith so uncertain must certainly wane. 
 
 * Your Christian Religion ! Why even the Jew 
 
 * Is by many centuries older than you. 
 
 • While ere Moses was born, old Egypt's old cult, 
 
 *St. Augustine writes, " They who sit in the seat are to be heard . . . 
 but if they teach their own doctrines, you are neither to obey nor hee^ *,Iiein." 
 And Paul says, "Though we or an angel from heaven, etc." 
 
85 
 
 * Yea, long ages before, was a worship adult. 
 
 * What ! bid us forsake the great Gods of old Eome, 
 
 * By whose guardian favour our city's become 
 
 * The mistress of nations, for your newfangled creed, 
 
 * Concerning whose doctrines scarce two are agreed, 
 ' Whilst in the old faith we are all of one mind, 
 
 * For the customs of old handed down to us bind. 
 
 * E'en the Jews to the Elders' traditions keep close, 
 ' And so the new doctrines of Jesus oppose. 
 
 * Where was your religion till Jesus forsook 
 
 ' The Jewish Religion, and instead, undertook 
 
 * To set up his own ! W^hat abandon great Jove 
 
 * ymd the time-honored jrods of our forefathers' love 1 
 
 * But we will the power of th^ Empire employ 
 
 * This ill-omened thing root and branch to destroy. 
 ' The Gods are insulted ! Shall we sit idly by 
 
 ' And see them insulted, and not swear that this lie 
 
 ' Shall be banished from earth. What we fail with vain words 
 
 ' To do, we will do with our good Roman swords. ' 
 
 'Tis ever the way : crush by might and main 
 Where you cannot your ends by sound argument gain. 
 So where was 2/cwr religion ere Luther, they cry : 
 Where was your religion ere Christ, we reply : 
 But as Christ came " the prophets and law to fulfil," 
 So Luther the old christian faith to instil 
 In the minds of his hearers, and sweep clean away 
 The rubbish, and follies, and filth, that o'erlay 
 The religion of Christ — his end, to restore, 
 The Christian religion: this, this, and no more. 
 
 St. Paul, when pronouncing the duty we owe 
 To those temporal rulers set o'er us, cries woe ; 
 
 (And St. Peter pronounces the same judgment, too) 
 To those who resist the plain o~iinance of God 
 Established by him for the general good. 
 But the heads of this church stand defiant of all 
 That here is set down by the pen of St. Paul. 
 Ihey weaken the allegiance''' of men to the laws. 
 Excommunicate Kings and depose them, because 
 They suit not their ends, gloat o'er murders wholesale, 
 Goading them to more butcheries still — the entail 
 
 * The very Canon law of the church affirms that " The Bishop of Rome may 
 exconimnnicate Emperors and Princes, and depose them from their states, and 
 assoil their subjects from their oath of obedience to them, and so constrain to re- 
 bellion." 
 
 Pivjs V coi'firmed the terrible Bull cf Pius IV. and in 1570 deposed Elizabeth 
 of England, and released her subjects Irom their vow of allegiance. 
 
86 
 
 Of the dogmas they hold— denying the right 
 
 Of conscience to mould us so, as the blest light 
 
 Of the truth shining on us, to our blinduess gives sight. 
 
 But the whole is a daring conspiracy, planned 
 
 To grub up by the roots in our protestant laud 
 
 Our liberties, rights of free conscience and speech. 
 
 And free instituti-ons and laws. And they preach 
 
 And print with all frankness those dogmas ; yea, add 
 
 Their right to compel us by force ^dr [yen mad 
 
 By presumption and folly to overthrow all. 
 
 Relying upon our supineness, and thrall 
 
 To party, to place, to position, and pelf 
 
 And all the mean matters that dominate self. 
 
 But the Jesuits are but another man's tools, . 
 
 A foreign Head-Centre who lays down the rules. 
 Which for evil or good, whate'er they convey. 
 Their duty is simply to blindly obey. 
 Like *' a corpse " that lies passive till moved by the will 
 Of another, or •* staff in his hand " to fulfil 
 The will of the holder. So these may eschew 
 No order they get, or to do or undo. 
 Setting over the laws of the realm or state 
 This man's /om^n laws, out of tune, out of date, 
 Sorry waifs handed down from a barbarous age. 
 When to torture and burn for the faith was the rage, 
 And to follow one's conscience and Christ was a crime. 
 
 For science likewise it was not a good time, 
 To wit, for a poor Galileo to climb 
 To the star-spangled heavens, and tell how he saw 
 The great movement of things by plain natural law. 
 But the pope was infallible then as he's now, 
 And poor Galileo of course had to bow, 
 And the sun an appendage of earth w obey 
 Our small satellite world and go round it each day. 
 
 Ultramontane and Jesuit are the one breed. 
 They both alike hold the Pius-the-ninth creed, 
 In ♦* Encyclic " and *' Syllabus " frankly avowed. 
 And the famed " Unum Sanctum" of which they're so proud. 
 
 The Jesuit bows at his President'r. nod. 
 For the head of his order to him is as God. 
 But his conscience is not what we commonly call 
 The conscience generic, scarce conscience at all, 
 But his conscience shut up in another man's breast, 
 Which determines his course, be it blest or unblest. 
 
 Must he be, then, a bad man ? Far from it, but caught 
 Like the bondman of Kaki, he does as he's taught, 
 
 
97 ' 
 
 Yet so in the world fearful mischief is wrought 
 
 Go it blind seven-eighths of his creed, if not all. 
 
 He scoffs at the tolerance taught by St. Paul, 
 
 Aud, before him, by Christ. Yet his passionate zeal 
 
 Endurance and pluck are such treats as appeal 
 
 To all honest hearts. But to master mankind, 
 
 To have him think for them, while they go it blind. 
 
 To persuade states and realms to submit to what he 
 
 In his wisdom determines their duty to be, 
 
 Or if unsubmissive, to break them by forces 
 
 As he always has done without twinge of remorse, 
 
 Why incorporate these, then, who no fealty owe 
 
 2b the British Queen more than to her worst foe ; 
 
 Men who are a. foreigner's henchmen to do, 
 
 I^t the Queen's, but his will, as they're ordered thereto. 
 
 Bound body and soul to do as they're told 
 
 To further his ends in whose cause they're enrolled. 
 
 Now the strength of the Jesuit lies not in his 
 Intellectual vigour but chiefly in this. 
 
 That no pale doubt diverts him,'^ but, set on his end, • 
 
 He goes to it direct, determined to bend, 
 So far as lies in him, all wills to his own ; 
 Which means to the will of his chieftain alone. 
 He may not be cruel, but his trade is to ride 
 Over conscience and hearts whate'ei may betide. 
 What to him are all governments, states, mundane laws, 
 When the statutes of Heaven he knows clause by clause. 
 
 Yet cocksureness is not, in our judgment of men, 
 A sure highwater mark of the mind ; for it can 
 Co-exist with scant knowledge, stupidity crass ; 
 Take at random a man from yon ignorant mass, 
 Your stupid Boeotian — poor ignorant boor — 
 Than your wide-cultured Socrates oft is more sure. 
 But a question that comes up to-day is, if we 
 
 *The honest Protestant and (may I say) the honest Jesuit do not stand on a 
 footing of equality here. The Protestant is at a disadvantage. He cannot go 
 straight to his object, believing that "the end justifies the means." There is 
 that in the voice within, backed by his moral training, that "fills him full of 
 obstacles." "Those moral laws of nature and of nations speak aloud," And 
 thus "the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
 and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard are turned away, and 
 lose the name of ^.ction. I am aware that, at least, some Jesuits, charged with 
 this terrible doctrine, have denied it as theirs. But a very distinguished Jesuit, 
 Bausenbaum, whose "Medulla Theologia" (The Marrow of Theology) has been, 1 
 learn, more than ^^^iy times printed, and lately by the Propaganda itself, lays 
 down the maxim thus, "Cum finis est licitus etian licent media'' ; and again, "Cui 
 licitus est finis, etiam licent media." 
 
88 
 
 Are bouud past recall by state sovereignity, 
 (A matter that worked so much trouble elsewhere) 
 That in whatever case a majority bare 
 Votes a measure shall pass, the minority there 
 Have but to knock under, and patiently bear 
 What wrongs may be done them ; nor may they elseichere 
 Look for help while they see public funds, set aside 
 For a great public end, to a purpose as wide 
 From this end as the poles are, endowing a sect 
 To teach their sect objects, and so to infect 
 With their pestilent dogmas the minds of the young. 
 At a period of life when their minds can be swung 
 To this side or that, and such doctrines there taught 
 As by little and httle in the mind get inwrought, 
 Till a part of itself. And thus doctrines so dear 
 To the soul of a man ; in their bearings so clear 
 On the welfare of all, as free conscience, free speech. 
 And free institutions, these people impeach, 
 Substituting therefore slavish doctrines outgrown 
 ' By the Peers of the race, but so helpful to Rome, 
 Which needs every prop learned folly can give, 
 To enable her still such assaults to outlive 
 As scripture, and science, and learning combined 
 Bring to bear on her oft battered walls, but we find 
 That argument, to be effective, implies 
 In the person encountered, the presence of eyes 
 To perceive whab's the force of the argument used. 
 But here is the rub ! For if minds are confused 
 With regard to the plainest averments cf sight, ^ 
 Of taste, and of touch, in the clearest dayhght. 
 To whese evidence Christ in the Gospel appenh,^ 
 As that which all matters with certainty seals. 
 But if men can assert against something so plain 
 As the verdict the senses pronounce, but explain, 
 That the thing, in some mystical way, is not such 
 As they see it to be, and can taste it, and touch, 
 And deliberately examine it, yet 
 That the bread and the wine, or the wafer they get. 
 Is no wafer, and no bread and wine, but a man — 
 A man with his flesh and whole bones, then they can 
 Be scarce trusted as guides in these questions, where mind 
 Through the tangjes of thought has its pathway to find. 
 
 But folly dies hard ! 'Tis so kin to the mind 
 Of the great slavish, blundering mass of mankind. 
 
 *Luke xy v, 39. - ■ 
 
• 80 
 
 But this we insist on as of vital need 
 That the veto^^' in all its integrity, freed 
 From all doubts, or demurrings, or lowerings, stand 
 • The minority's safe-guard in that priest-governed land, 
 Where Jesuits rule, and their proteges crave 
 The permission of Rome, which so kindly he gave, 
 To sell their own lands — yet not wholly their 's, 
 But of the minority, too ; but who cares 
 What minorities think — and then ratified 
 Their act, when they Jirst with hit terms had complied, 
 
 It was the first time, pray it may be the last. 
 When the Crown of the great British Empire was cast, 
 Since the great "Reformation," beneath the Pope's feet. 
 And a Minister humbled himself to entreat 
 The Pope to be pleased his permission to grant 
 To sell our own lands. The reply, if 'twas scant. 
 Was much to the purpose. The pope answered yes, 
 But he added " upon the condition express " 
 That the money accruing therefrom be left free. 
 ** To he used as seems best to the great Roman See.'' 
 To this he assented, our Parliament too, 
 And so the whole business was carried right through. > 
 That was a surrender indeed of our rights, . . - . 
 
 Which like acid on iron into the soul bites. 
 
 But the Jesuit aye for ascendancy tries, 
 While we ask but our rights. But if party denies, 
 Through passion or vote-needs urged to it, this boon — 
 And here we've to do with the cunningest coon, 
 I mean no disrespect, but under the moon 
 I scarcely know one, who so subtly and soon 
 Could reasons suggest for or 'gainst any course, . 
 To make it appear or the best or the worst — 
 But if party denies us our rights, we must try ' 
 
 W^hat the voters will say, when to them we apply. 
 For the hundred and eighty votes to thirteen 
 Were cast on that day for the Pope 'gainst the Queen-— 
 I speak not of motive, I speak of the fact. 
 There are so many things that straight vision distract — 
 Still our voters had better send none of them hack. 
 Unless he explicitly state he will act, 
 
 *Mr. Goldwin Smith writes : " 7%e veto given to the Dominion government 
 upon Provincial legislation is perfectly general, no limitation of any kind being 
 suggested by the British North America Act ; nor can there be any doubt that it 
 was intended to keep the action of the local Legislature tw harmony with the 
 geiieraX policy cf the country^ and at the same time to protect the minorities of race 
 and religion in the several Provinces." 
 
 
90 
 
 So that in each ProviDce men's rights be intact, 
 
 Whether by a majority there or not backed, 
 
 That no law be allowed that favors one sect, 
 
 To the hurt of another ; but that he'll protect 
 
 Minorities wrouged because they are such 
 
 As do not belong to the dominant church. 
 
 And though it be urged that in fiscal affairs, 
 
 A people may do what they like with what's theirs, 
 
 Yet not with what's not theirs ; nor e'en with their own, 
 
 For they may not give aid to the foes of the throne. 
 
 And what foes are more real than who stand between 
 
 The subject's obedience and the laws of the Queen, 
 
 For the things she has passed her laws to secure, 
 
 Are such as his Holiness cannoi endure. 
 
 Thus the hundred and eighty-eight votes to thirteen 
 
 Were cast on that day for the Pope 'gainst the Queen — 
 
 ' Gainst freedom of conscience, of speech, and the laws, 
 
 But by the thirteen for as righteous a cause, . . 
 
 As ever yet won noble men's just applause. 
 
 Then all honor to him, who, in spite of the ties 
 
 Which bound him to his chief, could so gallantly rise 
 
 On the floor of the House to declare in the face 
 
 Of foeraan and friend, that he dare not debase 
 
 His manhood and conscience, by paying a band 
 
 Of men (for ill deeds from nigh every land 
 
 Chased ; and by e'en their pope abolished) to do 
 
 As they ever have done— to their principles true. 
 
 But as Pilate and Herod, once foes became friends 
 O'er that horrible deed, so the Grit here defends • 
 The Tory with zeal. For protection, free-trade 
 Are of moment far higher. But who makes a raid 
 On those rights we hold dearest, of course should be paid ; 
 And so Mr. Flippant, half- cultured, half-read. 
 With a shallow philosophy packed in his head, 
 Would fain barter away our sires' blest entail 
 But his small pop-gun pellets what can they avail 
 'Gainst the great solid shot of his foeman, the mail ; 
 But, Orangemen, stand to your guns witliout fail. 
 At this fearful conjuncture, see you firmly nail 
 To the masthead your colours, and budge not an inch, 
 It was not in the blood of your fathers to flinch, 
 And let no one persuade you for these men to vote. 
 With the grip of the Jesuit tight on the throat 
 Of your liberties, laws, constitutional rights — 
 Those blessings in which noble manhood delights. 
 Mr, F's. stock in trade of strange doctrines is such, 
 
ft 
 
 , He'd allow the Quebecen to have a state church, 
 To compel to pay tithes — the minority too — ' 
 
 In political ethics a something quite new ; 
 For such doctrinaires what will they not do ? 
 On his Pegasus seated, urged hy his great sou! 
 He rides o*er all fences straight on to his goal. 
 Minorities, eh ! What are they, pray, when he, 
 Deep grained in the brain, has his grand theory. 
 Which riding to death, or where'er he may land. 
 Is (culled not from books, but) his own at first hand. 
 
 How brotherly now these men join, hand in glove. 
 To set Roman Canon law, priest-made, above 
 The law of Great Britain, that law which our sires 
 By hard fighting had won, and whose memory fires 
 Her noble sons still, while the cowards and fools 
 Rome, if inwardly chuckling, still uses as tools. 
 Does not Italy even, wiiich once the tattoo 
 Of Rome's drum beat to quarters, obedient, now spew 
 This thing as a barbarous law out of date. 
 While she substitutes for it the law of the state. ^ 
 But, since sleepless vigilance only can keep ' 
 
 Our freedom secure, must our souls never sleep. 
 
 Now to secret societies we are told that the Pope 
 Is wholly opposed. Hore, then, he has scope 
 For the exercise meet of his powers to suppress 
 This secret society, e'en though it distress 
 His soul to do so, as a fore-pope had done. 
 For why a good course, e'en though painfullest, shun ? 
 But, no ! Opposition means just this that he 
 Is opposed to those only who wont bend the knee 
 To his doctrines in all things, a whole-souled devotee.* 
 The Orange Bill, too, by our Local House passed,! ^■ 
 Was not it reserved and frustrated at last ? 
 And was this to declare the Ontario House - 
 Was not competent to it, not autonomous, , 
 
 *Says Lord Salsbiiry : ** We now know that a more powerful organization, 
 which has in every age set every other at defiance, was in the field before us, and 
 that it had sapped every social tie and set at nought every traditional affection. 
 VVe shall be mad, indeed, ij we do not take warning from this disclosure. In the 
 tempest that passed over Ireland in the autumn, the disguise has been for a mo- 
 ment blown aside, and you see that the antagonism with wh^ch you have to con- 
 tend is the sijiister domination of Archbishop Croke and Archbishop Walsh." Men 
 are at length being forced to recognize this terrible conspiracy against human 
 rights. 
 
 t What ! Call they the mongrel thing they have at last been driven to concede 
 u worthy Incorporation Bill. But what is written in my text was penned before 
 this half-cowardly thing was granted, not to justice, but to clamour. 
 
92 
 
 But needed the Ottawa sanction thereto. 
 
 Or was this at that time the Mowat-held view, 
 
 Unless 'twere a dodge to shift the hlame from 
 
 Themselves, who should hear it, to saddle it on, 
 
 With the odium attendant, the hack of Sir John. 
 
 But the veto, it is the very keyHone 
 
 To bind the whole arch of Dominion in one ; ^ 
 
 But if to incoiporate Jesuits he 
 
 A thing intra vires, which on that account we 
 
 Have but to endorse— if to this we agree, 
 
 Would it then be allowed to incorporate too. 
 
 On similar grounds, a ivliole Nihilist creiv. 
 
 Or a body of Thugs, or a Fenian liost. 
 
 And to grant them supplies at the Province's cost. 
 
 And would the famed hundred and eighty-eight, who 
 
 For the former bill voted, for this one vote too ? 
 
 But we are a dominion, to veto whatever 
 Tends the bonds that unite the whole country to sever ; 
 As once, mente sana, 'twas urged by Sir John, 
 •* Not six Provinces are we, each doing its own 
 Special work, disregarding the rest ; we are one 
 United Dominion, with sovereign right 
 " To cancel whatever is done in despite 
 *' Of the general weaV^ 
 
 To this we agree, 
 'Tis our bulwark of safety. But now not so says he, 
 For, with other ends, he promotes other views, 
 And the very thing which he once preached now eschews. 
 
 But the other side urges upon us, 'tis due 
 To each Province to let it its own course pursue ; 
 But that one member suffer and the others not, too. 
 Is something that comes not within their purview ; * ^ 
 
 Or 'tis possibly rather that they little care, 
 A part, if not all, how minorities fare ; 
 Let them spend their own money — the minority's, too ?— 
 A mere fiscal affair ! With their own let them do 
 As they will — how concerns it me, pray, or you — 
 And pay Nihilist, Jc -t, Thug, whom they please. 
 Provided they leave in power at our ease ; 
 Or lift UP to ^ower ; for power is our joy, 
 With its perquisites, too I Yea, would they destroy 
 That power of the vei-o which gives to the poor 
 Minority some chance by which to secure 
 Their freedom and rights, should the federal power 
 Prove equal thereto at the critical hour. 
 But I fear that their rights would scarce outweigh a mote, 
 
 
 (4 
 
98 
 
 If bent on securing the Catholic vote. 
 
 Yea, that all that Sir John, wh^*^ iiimself, had once said 
 
 Would be buried 3eep down in the grave of the dead. 
 
 What ! Pay men who inscribe on their banner unfurled 
 A foreign priest's right to override the whole world, 
 And cancel its laws ; yea, use /orc« to compel 
 To their dicta obedience, in case we rebel. 
 For according to these men — to this things have come — 
 A foreigner-prifst, say, residing at Rome, 
 May make laws for mankind, or allow them : while we, 
 The weak abjects of Rome, no longer soul-free. 
 Sit twiddling our thumbs, while our Senates submit. 
 Hat in hand, to his Holiness, if he'll permit 
 Our law to hold good, or if any appears 
 To run counter to faith, or the least interferes 
 With his papal authority : as in the day, 
 When great Gregory (Hildebrand) ruled with such sway. 
 And since Rome means to hurry us on at quick pace. 
 We should tutor ourselves to submit with good grace 
 At once, and all taint of rebellion efface. 
 'Tis a beautiful prospect ! And we can but feel 
 How nobly he acts for the general weal. 
 Yet, alas, there are people with hearts hard as steel. 
 Who cannot exactly, as Rome wishes, feel. 
 Who think what are these but a foreign brigade ^ ? 
 Under foreign command, in our country to aid ' 
 
 In upsetting our laws, as they ever have done. 
 And reducing all wills to the will of the one. 
 Whose foreign commands they are bound with closed eyes 
 To obey, be he foolish or wicked or wise. 
 Autocracy here with a vengeance we find — 
 The rule of the one, while the rest go it blind. 
 Are we a dominion ? As Sir John put it well, 
 Or Sovereign States, or a kind of pell-mell. 
 To Sir John so convenient, for so much depends 
 At each special conjuncture, on what are his ends. 
 But state sovereignty in a neighboring land 
 Gave a shock to the country it scarcely could stand. 
 
 But if the constitutionality 
 Of the Jesuit Act from doubt be so free. 
 That the Government's sure what the verdict would bo. 
 Why not the Supreme Court be asked to decide 
 The question at issue, by hearing each side, 
 No* on ex-parte statement, one party thereto 
 Presenting his case as he wills, with a view 
 To tLe verdict that suits him, though not me or you ; 
 
94 
 
 But the whole matter sifted and probed through and through, 
 
 With lawyers, -each side, who have studied the case, 
 
 In open Court all, where men stand face to face. 
 
 With the statutes and proofs and all else to the fore. 
 
 By which the whole question to tully explore ; 
 
 Not what some lawyers think, be they who or what — 
 
 And the case as presented to them we know not — 
 
 No affair hole-and-corner, but heard in the Court 
 
 Set apart for such cases, where each may support 
 
 His case by such argument as he deems fit. 
 
 Then to such Court's judgment we'd have to submit. 
 
 Still must we not rest till an act we procure, 
 Which placing our rights on a basis secure, 
 Against all the shocks of all time shall endure. 
 
 But why not Sir John, in a straightforward way. 
 That Court-judgment demand which we're bound to obey ? 
 But, iustead, he the portals of justice shuts close. 
 By explicit refusal ; yet though they oppose 
 Our prayer to submit to the Court the whole case. 
 Or to the Queen's council, as of right or of grace, , 
 Yet such had been granted ; yea, the money supplied ^ 
 In a similar matter, to have the case tried 
 By the Queen's Privy Council, though the Court had declared 
 " The Act " constitutional ; but not so our prayer fared. 
 But, then, we are not Bomaoists ; have not at our back 
 Three score solid votes for defence or attack. 
 Thus against us they shut every door that they can, 
 Withholding the plain rights of mau due to man. 
 
 Yet for what has this Court been created, if not 
 To pronounce after hearing both sides, if we've got 
 Constitutional grounds for some special act. 
 If such be intra vires as matter of fact, 
 Or to be disallowed : if the *' Jesuit Act 
 Of Incorporation " be such as the laws 
 Of the Empire permit. For if not, then their cause 
 Is lost. But if so, then must we bend the knee 
 To that Jesuit band— by their own pope's decree 
 Abolished forever, a nuisance to both 
 The state and church— though so terribly loath 
 To do such a deed. 
 
 In this 19th age too. 
 From many a state driven forth as the foe 
 Of public well-being— their doctrines strike so 
 At the root of allegiance^ • 'setting up 'gainst the state 
 In the State's own domain rival law, and for it 
 Like means of coebcion as0bbtino. bt which 
 
95 
 
 To ENFOBCE LIKE OBEDIENCE," IN StATE AS IN ChURCH.* 
 
 But their head, since a foreigner, how can he bo 
 Incorporate, in far away Italy, 
 And anotheb kino's vassal. Now, clearly, if he 
 Cannot be incorporate, they cannot be ; 
 For he is the will-power, the mover, the soul 
 Of the framework material, controlling the whole, 
 Tt be things and not persons being their proper role. 
 
 But as soon as the ruling will utters the word, 
 Their vigour and slibtlety quickly are proved ; 
 Then, like Summer bees, hither, thither they ply 
 Their several tasks, with a clear single eye 
 To the o\ 'ect designed, with devotion so rare 
 As no terror can daunt, and no misery Ecare. 
 Oh, that these high virtues, so ample we find 
 In these men, were but ranged on the side of mankind. 
 
 But incorporate such men, who know not to-day 
 The order to-mo^-row they may have to obey. 
 Which may be against what the Empire commands — 
 And remember we're here in a foreigner's hands. 
 Whose vassals these men are, bound body and soul 
 To him who wields o'er them sujrremest control^ 
 And whose laws, as avowed, beyond all debate, 
 Are directly opposed to the laws of the State. 
 But though we incorporate them, it is he 
 We incorporate really ; them but formally. 
 For this in their souls long obedience instils 
 To be the blind agents to do as he wills, f 
 He is the society, they but the hands 
 To execute faithfully what he commands. 
 
 'Gladstone. 
 
 1 1 here append some maxims, written by the famous Ignatius Loyola, the 
 founder of the Jesuit Order, for the guidance of his followers : *• I ought," 
 writes he, "to desire to be ruled by a Superior who endeavors to subjugate my 
 JUDGMENT AND SUBDUE MY UNDERSTANDING." But *' whon it seems to me that 
 I am commanded by my superior to do a thing against which my conscience re- 
 volts as sinful, and my superior judges otherwise, it is my duty to yield my 
 doubts to him, unless I am otherwise constrained by evident reasons " "If 
 submission does not ease my conscience, I must impart my doubts to two or 
 three persons of distinction, and ahide by their decision," in doing what is so hor- 
 rible that my own conscience revoltii at it. "I ought to yield myself to be 
 moulded in his (my superior's) hands, like so much wax." " I ought to be like 
 a corpse which has neither will nor understanding, or like a small crucifix, 
 which is turned about at the will of him who holds it, or like a staff in the hands 
 of an old man, who uses it as may best assist or please him." And these ar^ the 
 men whom, with their frightful doctrine of Probabilism appended, we have in- 
 corporated, and given money to, to effect the ruin of our liberties and ourselves, 
 Cef /ibainly, we are wise men. Oh, so wise ! 
 
/ 
 
 96 
 
 Why incorporate these, then, who cannot fulfil 
 The duties of man, since without a man's will ? 
 And we cannot incorporate him, since to-day 
 Another king's subject, whom he's bound to obey. 
 
 Still, on the broad basis of freedom, we say, 
 That the Jesuits as individuals mav 
 Our Canada enter and enjoy all fair play. 
 But be not made incorporate and paid, too, to preach 
 The terrible doctrines they always do teach. 
 So subversive of all ; while men who are true 
 To the country and empire (who of Rouge as of Bleu 
 Maintain the just claims) should yet be denied 
 Incorporate rights ; while those who provide 
 The gags for the lips, and the fetters for mind, 
 Are incorporate here, as the friends of mankind. 
 But it is our due fate, alas, that such things 
 Be done in this land of political rings. 
 
 Nor must we expect much from England. Already 
 With many vexed questions distracted, sighs she 
 
 * Your own affairs settle in any way, we 
 
 ' Will therewith be content. We only ask peace, 
 
 * Hence that you from your squabbles in Canada cease. 
 
 * Then this we advise as the best all-round plan, \ 
 
 " That you patch up this matter the best way you can, 
 
 * And we *irust that your Governor General is 
 
 * Open-eyed to our view, aud will back us in this.' 
 Such views plainly spoke might be held to degrade, 
 Yet, unspoken, they're too much the dodge of the trade 
 Of those Y/ho act for her. Yet we once had a Pym, 
 
 A HampdeQ, a Cromwell— men able to swim 
 
 Where their strong natures urged them, or with, or against 
 
 The currents of things. By clear principles fenced 
 
 Men gallant, strong-hearted, clear-headed, they knew 
 
 How from the bad seeds of ill principles grew. 
 
 And ever must grow, evil governments, such 
 
 As are baleful alike to the State and the church, 
 
 To incorporate Jesuits seemeth to me 
 
 An act to which Cromwell would hardly agree 
 
 In England or English land over the sea. 
 
 * Why, these are no subjects of England at all 
 
 * But a foreigner's vassals at his beck and call, 
 
 * To make every man in the world his own thrall.' 
 ** We incorporate such ! Pray, is it because 
 
 ** They preach evermore 'gainst our good English laws ; 
 ** No, no, our good English lands must be free 
 '* And no law give its aid to their Jesuitry." 
 
97 
 
 Who against disallowance now shout are the men — 
 The solid French Catholic phalanx — who, when 
 The New Brunswick Act had been passed and pronounced 
 By the Court intra vires, were they who denounced 
 This act of the Province, and would have it upset : 
 While a " Liberal " government voted to let 
 The question be argued in England, before 
 The Queen's privy council for judgment, yea more 
 They furnished the money to have it put through. 
 But then what are we but a "fanatic" crew ! 
 This makes all the difference whether it be 
 They who the brunt bear of the ruling, or we. 
 
 And how in this case Sir John voted we know, 
 And how Mr. Blake followed up with his blow, 
 By influence elsewhere the means to provide 
 The point of the measure to, so, turn aside, 
 Not for or against it directly, but meant 
 To overrule all, since it caused '* discontent,'* 
 And this Jesuit thing, deems he it gives content ? 
 'Why not invoke here the Crown's influence too, 
 And not be a man with a one-sided view, 
 But one who can look the whole thing through and through. 
 And, when Minister of Justice, did not Mr. Blake'^ 
 Send back to the State-Legislature to make 
 The changes deemed needful in an act it had passed, 
 Or even to have the whole measure recast. 
 But a change has come over their dream in these days, 
 And autonomy simply Reformers now praise ; 
 Of course, if the Act passed lies outside their power 
 Ipso facto 'tis dead from its very birth hour. 
 Here no veto is needed, then ; but if it be 
 One that clearly runs counter to good policy, 
 Where the whole is concerned, where the general weal 
 Demands of some special bad act the repeal, 
 As disintegrating, insulting, and fraught 
 With manifold mischief, it then surely ought 
 To be disallowed. 
 
 'TwaS " STATE SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 Disrupted the union," but profiting by 
 Their fatal experience, our Lawmakers brought 
 In the power of the veto, lest we, too, distraught 
 Through like special mad); ess, might equally try 
 Our separate objects to gain by and by. 
 So the veto was brought in to guard against this 
 
 * And yet what a m anificent patron of learning. 
 
98 
 
 Very danger to-day which so threatening is. 
 
 In " the B.N. A. Act " no limit is put 
 To the power of the Veto ; no line sharply cut 
 The •• Ultra " and •' Intra " of power to divide, 
 Putting this within competence ; that one, outside ; 
 But the Federal Council's left free to decide 
 Whatever is best for the general weal ; 
 If '• Ultra " the power, to the " Court " an appeal 
 Would scuttle their Act stillborn at its birth. 
 And so in the eye of the law of no worth. 
 Said Mr. Mackenzie, " the want of this power 
 
 '• In the United States in a critical hour « 
 
 *• Was a great source of weakness." But •' ample," thought he, 
 *• Would be our piotectiou with this guarantee, 
 ** Which would ill-legislation effectively check," 
 And prevent our Dominion becoming a wreck. 
 So spoke Sir John Rose, too : " This power, I believe, 
 " In the Federal Government's hand will achieve 
 " The success of the system." But not a word said 
 About *' ultra'' or ** intra,'' by leaders or led. 
 And, where naught is excepted, the law of The Schools 
 Is this, opine, that the general rules. 
 
 So if intra vires, yet in harmony not \ 
 
 With the general weal ; if defiant of what 
 Bight impartial demands ; if in any sphere 
 They only consult their own interests there. 
 Or what they deem such ; and if drawing apart. 
 With smallest regard for the great pulsing heart 
 Of this iMe federation, of which they're a part. 
 They deny an •• all Canada " compact is what 
 They hug to their hearts ; if their purpose is not 
 An all-round Dominion ; but a cherished romance 
 To build up "in this corner of Earth a new France," 
 With " the Syllabus flambeau " — the Jesuit creed — , 
 And the language of France ; if for this they must weed 
 Out *' the English and Scotch," as already they've done 
 In part, but must work till they leave of us none. 
 'Tis a beautiful prospect they mark as our Tate, 
 If a foreigner's laws, with that foreigner' s hate. 
 With power to enforce them, are what they propose 
 (And what this means their practice in past times foreshows) 
 As their end, it is certainly time we awake 
 From our laissez faire rubbish, and such measures take, 
 As may, backed by judgment and earnestness, cope 
 With this fooUng of Jesuit priest and his Pope. 
 
99 
 
 In Catholic France the Goarts held and still bold 
 That the Jesuit body cannot be enrolled 
 As a corporate class. Nor am I aware 
 That, except in Quebec, they have been anywhere, 
 And why should they be, with no will of their own, 
 But ruled everywhere by the will of the one, 
 Whose will we know not, nor do they, hour by hour ; 
 A Potentate foreign who uses his power 
 'Gainst the rights of the world, as he ever has done — 
 A centralized power oue-idead upon 
 The Throne of the intellect, conscience, and will 
 Of his army of slaves, all his bests to fulfil ; * 
 Whose uuwritten laws are a secret unknown 
 To any ; but from his own bosom alone 
 To be launched any hour in the interests of Rome. 
 And no matter what woes on the world they bring, 
 If Rome's cause be advanced, will the Jesuit sing. 
 
 This property, it had been given at first 
 For a specified end by Great Britain in trust. 
 And accepted by Parliaments fully as such, 
 And administered long so. But here we must blush, 
 For 'twas •' stolen " by us, we are told. But from whom ? 
 From those who were then non-existent, whose doom 
 Had been sealed by their Pope ? From the Jesuits ? When 
 There no Jesuits were in the world— that wen 
 On our civilization by him cut out clean, 
 Root and branch, he had hoped ; but now growu out again. 
 Why before Britain e'en interfered in the least , 
 
 The Jesuits in Canada had really ceased 
 To exist, having been by their own pope suppressed ; 
 When the crown, as is usual in such a case, 
 Stepped properly into their now vacant place. 
 And by a fine sense of its duty impelled 
 This ownerless, derelict property held 
 For the good of the country, to benefit those 
 Who, though profited by it, are to-day her sworn foes. 
 
 But the Jesuit body's a figment. When we 
 
 * Cardinal Newman would call this a devdopment. But, if so, it is plainly a 
 development baceward. Just as the young free-swimming; Ascidian, a/ttr u 
 number of retrogressive changes, at length ^xes itself to something in the muddg 
 bottom of the water, and becomes s. mere pouch for receiving and digesting, etc., 
 whatever the water passing through it may happen to briiig in or with it. Is 
 there no analogy here ? No free swimming for the Romanist. He has only to 
 accept and digest, bat no free enquiry for him. His creed is found for him, not 
 by him, and impassive he accepts it all. With him the young church has passed 
 / into the quiet of Ascidian senility. 
 
100 
 
 Incorporate them apparently ^ we 
 
 Their head only incorporace really. 
 
 For they but the limbs are— the feet and the hands, — 
 
 To execute what the great master commands. 
 
 PAP. 
 
 But by Roman canon law all property which 
 The Jesuits have lost falls back to the church ? 
 
 PRO. 
 
 But the rules that rule us their authority draw 
 
 Not from foreign-made canons but English-made law, 
 
 And just only conceive how forlorn the hope 
 
 To get Catholic countries to return to the Pope i 
 
 The holdings of Jesuits, and such who have worked 
 
 The highway of progress and thought to obstruct 
 
 With their go-it-blind rubbish ; and, reserved in the wake, 
 
 That knock 'em down argument, the rack and the stake. 
 
 E'en the press of Sir John in old Kingston admits, 
 
 In reviewing a late speech on the Jesuits, 
 
 That what they demanded (and got) was a claim 
 
 •• Nor legal nor morale'' and yet to our shame. 
 
 The pubhc is robbed to bestow it on those 
 
 Who unfalteringly have been its deadliest foes 
 
 Of liberty, progress and light ; who employ 
 
 Their cunning all government-rights to destroy, • 
 
 To leave us exposed, should we dare to resist 
 
 Their rule, to the will of the merciless priest. 
 
 By what right do we then allow money to pay 
 
 Those men whose designs are as clear as the day. 
 
 Who are simply conspirators, just to employ 
 
 The money we give them our rights to destroy, 
 
 By cunning and force. 
 
 But, in Italy now 
 How many are they to the Pope's will who bow. 
 Where the homage they once paid to him they now pay 
 To the man of their choice, their king, to whose sway 
 They are willingly subject. And France, what of it ? 
 To name it a Catholic land is scarce fit. 
 But Romanists see not things in the ** dry light " 
 Of fact, but as twisted and coloured to sight 
 By prejudgment, and wishing to see things just so ; 
 And thus — 'tis so common — thoughts troublesome throw 
 Into the greii.t w&st^-paper basket of mind. 
 Lest they, by straight looking, aught to startle them find. 
 
 Still Rome's is the Catholic cnurch, in despite 
 Of the facts of the world —eternally right ! — 
 
101 
 
 And statistics prove nothing, for facts what are they, 
 Though they stand hard as granite to block up the way ; 
 In the Alembic of Rome they dissolve all away. 
 
 Romish schools state-endowed they demand as a right 
 Everywhere, but 'gainst this must the Patriot fight ; 
 For sectary schools so sustained are the blight 
 Of our civilization, which they can't abide, 
 Of our civilization ; but when was allowed 
 The Jesuit bill, with their purpose avowed 
 To work, might and main, to roll back the full tide 
 Into the dark night of those barbarous ages 
 So fully portrayed in the historical pages 
 Of Catholic writers — times of moral death, 
 But oft styled, euphemistically, *' ages of faith," 
 But if once 'tis allowed by Sir John and the rest, 
 'Twill be a hard fight, ere we're rid of the pest. 
 
 And now let me add toward the end of my theme, 
 What an Orangeman is ; for though he may seem 
 To many, a uarrow-souled bigot, a dour, 
 Intolerant zealot, who, if he were sure 
 Of impunity for it, would under his heel 
 Stamp every Papist, and force him to feel 
 The sharp sting of power ; and such, 'tis allowed. 
 May exist ; but, if so, they aro lost in t'le crowd 
 Of men who are bound by their pledge, and their creed, 
 And their love of fair play, to stand up, when the need 
 Exists of protection to freedom, to fight. 
 Whatever the creed of the man frankly for his right 
 To frankly avow it. This then is the faith 
 By his pledge he is bound to defend to the death. 
 
 But the Catholic creed obliges not so, 
 But the opposite wholly ; hence must he outgrow 
 The creed of his church, if he would not deny 
 The teaching of conscience and Christ ; and comply 
 With the code of our civilized life — the rich prize 
 Won at length from a cuuningest tangle of lies. 
 
 Thus the one, by the laws of his conscience, is found 
 The foe of constraint ; while the other is bound, 
 By the law of his church, his own faith to enforce 
 By those methods to which she of old had recourse : 
 Though the voice from within says, thou shalt not endorse 
 What thou can'st not believe. And, oh, what greater curse 
 Can the soul here endure, than the pangs of remorse. 
 When men deem they've deserted God's truth for a lie, 
 And are daily provolang his anger thereby. 
 
102 
 
 In Romanist writings we commonly find 
 This phrase, which appeals to the Romanist mind, 
 That Rome's is the Catholic Church. 
 
 Yet we see 
 The Protestant millions throughout Germany 
 And in England, and Scotland, and Sweden, and all 
 Those Northern countries which into line fall 
 With their protesting brothers. The United States, too. 
 Which to Protestantism has always been true. 
 While from Australasia to the Cape of Good Hope 
 The people are scarcely the friends of the Pope. 
 Then there's the Greek '* Orthodox Church," with its hosts 
 Of millions on millions, which equally boasts ^ 
 
 Her descent Apostolic, which none can gainsay ; 
 For 'twas hers from the earliest times to to-day. 
 
 Since apostasy han been foretold, then, and signs 
 To KNOW IT BY writ in indelible lines, 
 And if Protestantism or Popery is 
 Such apostasy, should we not ask ourselves this, 
 To which church, to be known by, these signs here apply, 
 A thing hardly less clear than if writ on the sky."' 
 
 I return to Johnson, of whom in the van 
 Of the Orangemen's walk in New York, I began, 
 And whose principles prove them no narrowest clan, 
 Resolved to stir strife up between man and man, 
 But though in their lives we may find large defect, — 
 And what Christians are all in their conduct correct — 
 In their creed no wide christian much flaw can detect ; 
 
 • 1 Tim. IV: 1-8. "But the Spirit speak eth expressly, that in later fciraea 
 some shall fall away from the faith . . . .forbidding to marry [and commanding] to 
 
 abstain from mecUs which God created to be received with thanksgiving for 
 
 every creature of (^od is good, and nothing to be rejected. If thou put the 
 brethren in mind of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ 
 
 but refuse profane and old ivives fables, etc." Is this a prophecy or not ? Is 
 
 it not, too, USHERED IN WITH greo^ solemnity — '* the spirit speaks expressly," em- 
 phatically. And at the end, the words of exhortation, "if thou put the breth- 
 ren in mind of these things, thou shalt be a good minister." Does this all mean 
 nothing ? Is it at all like Protestantism ? But is it not Popery to the very life ? 
 Popery in itn nlalaest outward manifestation, with "the profane and o/f/ loivts* 
 fables^" in •* t^e lives of the Saints," and the ** bodily exercise " (v 8) all tagged 
 on. Again ** the time will come when . . . men will turn from the truth 
 unto fables," and again, " evil men and seducers shall wax worse and wor/te." — 
 2 Tim. Ill : 13 and iv : 3, 4. 
 
108 
 
 For the Orangeman holds to no party or sect.'*' 
 
 In church or in Rtate ; for most faiths alike fit 
 
 His liberal mind. He's Conservative, Grit ; 
 
 Presbyterian, or Baptist, or High or Low Church, 
 
 Or disciple of Wesley ; for vainly we search 
 
 For a creed of cast iron to cripple his soul, 
 
 His being a faith that embraces the whole. 
 
 So broad and elastic all find enough space. 
 
 While there still may be room for the growth of the race. 
 
 Brave leader, brave men, mav vour valorous deed 
 Live and burn in our hearts, till humanitv freed 
 From the whip of the Priest, we may look in the face 
 Every problem of thought- the co-hei|>8 with the race 
 Of freedom unstinted — of all things on this earth 
 The lordliest, richest, the best boon of our birth. 
 Without which what could be of much real worth. 
 
 * I here extract a few lines from the "General Declaration " or Constitu- 
 tion of Orangemen, morally binding on every one of them. ** The Orange society 
 
 lays no claim to exclusive loyalty or exclusive Protestantism, Disclaiming an 
 
 intolerant spirit, the society demands as an indispensable qualification . . 
 that the candidate shall be deemed xncupahle of persecuting or injuring any one on 
 account of his religioivt opinions ; the duty of every Orangeman bein^ t^o aid and 
 defend all loyal subjects of every religious persuasion, in the enjoyment of their 
 constitutional tights.'' '* Maintaining religion without perseaUion or trenching on 
 the rights of others.'^ 
 
In this my pamphlet (and I have plagiarised unblushingly) I simply draw a 
 comparison between the old Christianity unfolded to our view in the New 
 Testament, and the comparatively modern system of Romanism, grown up, as it 
 is now, from small beginnings of errors, till it has culminated in what it is ; as 
 Christ tells us, " while men slept the enemy sowed tares " ; or, as Peter says, 
 •' there shall be amongst you false teachers who jyiivily shall bring in destructive 
 heresies "; or, as Paul says, " evil men and seducers shall wax v^orse and worse" 
 But why multiply passages ? 
 
 1 am far from wishing to wound the most sensitive Romanist, but only, by 
 the clearest arguments, to win him from the horrible syHtem in which he is so 
 unhappily entangled. To injure any one, no matter what his creed, in mind or 
 body, has no sanction from Christianity ; though the Roman church in its practice 
 and on principle teaches that it has. I do not, however, say that there are not 
 amongst ourselves some who have not, in spirit and in act, violated the tolerant 
 spirit of Christianity. Indeed, I know the contrary. For men, unless held back by 
 steady principle, will not always forbear from doing the kind of wrong I refer to, 
 when they know the fearfully dangerous and avowed principles by which their 
 opponents are governed. But this should be always borne in mind, that, in such 
 occasional spurts of intolerance, the one party is acting in direct opposition to 
 the very constitutional principles that are instituted to govern their actions ; 
 while the other party is not restrained, but the contrary, by like principles. 
 And this constitutes a very radical diffeience, indeed. 
 
 
 BRITISH WHIG 1»RINT, KINGSTON, ONT.