Continuing in the papacy, its history, dogmas, genius, and prospects, we come now to Book Four, Present Policy and Prospects of the Papacy. Chapter One, Sham Reform and Real Reaction. Pius IX, on ascending the pontifical throne in 1846, found a crisis in papal affairs. Ages of misgovernment and superstition had borne their proper fruit. Universal decay and exhaustion. Nations were exhausted. The long thralldom they had endured had inflicted a fatal blight on their moral and industrial powers. Governments were exhausted. Their numerous crusades and wars had sunk them into bankruptcy. Churches were exhausted. Superstition had worn out belief altogether and plunged the masses into infidelity and atheism. Wickedness is short-lived and in the end destroys itself. Thus, After twelve centuries of dominion and glory, it was seen that the papacy was now verging to its fall, and that it was the author of its own overthrow. The Reformation had done much to weaken potpourri. The progress of scientific discovery and the working of a free press, and direct consequences of the Reformation, had contributed also to undermine this system. But, though it startles at first, Potpourri had done more than all these to work out its own ruin. Its superstition had passed into atheism, its tyranny into revolution, and the papacy appeared doomed to a violent death at the hands of those evil principles which itself had engendered. His first glance at the Catholic world, after his elevation to the tiara, must have satisfied the Pope that the condition of Western Europe was very different indeed from what it was in the 15th century. Different even from what it was in the middle of last century. That the democratic element, which had burst out with such terror in the First French Revolution, and which had spent itself in the wars that followed, had been recruiting its forces during the period of quiescence since 1815, that it now universally pervaded the West, that it had summoned to its aid principles of unknown character but of tremendous power, and that there was not strength enough in either the secular or the sacerdotal system to withstand the coming shock unless, indeed, Both should come to be reinvigorated and that it has in the 20th and 21st centuries. It did just that. Pius was aware especially that in Italy a constitutional movement was in progress and had been so in the latter years of his predecessor Gregory XVI. He knew that thoughtful Italians, both in and out of Italy, were painfully sensible of the demoralization of their country, that they attributed that demoralization to the character and form of its government, that they regarded the rule of a sacerdotal monarch as an anomaly, unsuited to the spirit and the wants of the age. and a barrier to progress that throughout all Italy, more especially in the states of the Church, where the evil was more felt, and even in Rome itself, the desire was universal among all classes for the disjunction of the temporal and spiritual sovereignties. And all this was perfectly well known to Pius IX. on its elevation to the fisherman's chair and it is necessary to keep this in view as it explains the phase that Potpourri assumed and the new tactics which it adopted and likewise furnishes the key to its present state and prospects. Now again this is 1851 and we all know later that Potpourri was successful in changing the scriptures now in the year 2021 it's out of control. Continuing. Pulpary, though outwardly strong, is inwardly and essentially weak. The reverse is the fact as regards Christianity. It is outwardly weak but inwardly and essentially strong. Its power is within itself and inseparable from its essence. It can lead those on whom it operates, whether an individual or a nation, to act contrary to their passions and interests. It originates and guides great movements, but is never dragged in their rear. Not so the Papacy. All its power is without itself. It governs men only in accordance with their passions. It watches the rising of great movements like the Bolshevik Revolution and also like the First World War after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Links itself onto them and appears to guide while in point of fact it is constrained to follow like the rise of Adolf Hitler. The crisis in which Pius IX found the papacy offered him the alternative of opposing the movement, or of siding with it, and so appearing to lead it. Either alternative was attended with immense risk, but on the principle we have stated, that potpourri is powerless in opposition unless she can wield the sword and that her great strength lies in casting herself upon the popular current in whatever direction it may chance to be running, Pius chose the last, as the least perilous of the two courses open to him. No one can yet have forgotten the amazement which seized upon all men when they saw that power, which for ages had been the head of European despotism, place itself at the head of the Italian movement, now sufficiently developed to be seen as part of a grand European movement towards constitutional government. A new prodigy was beheld. that power which had warred with liberty during ten centuries and ceased to assail it with its thunderbolts only when it was prostrate beneath its feet, that power which had been the bulwark of despotic thrones, which had provided a dungeon for science and a stake for the patriot and the confessor, whose motto was immobility, had become the patron of progress and assumed the lead in a grand movement towards free government. In other words, they changed their tactics, which is what they've always done. Those who were able to penetrate the policy of Rome saw clearly that the movement was distasteful and abhorrent to the papacy, that it contained principles utterly destructive of the system, and that it had placed itself at its head that it might strangle by craft what it was unable to crush by force. Just look at 2020 in America. That's all coming from Rome. All of it. Nevertheless, for some time, the policy of the Pope was completely successful. And there even appeared some likelihood of its being finally triumphant. flambeau were burned before the gates of the Quirinal, and Rome resounded day and night with vivas. The journalists of Paris and London wrote elaborate and eloquent penegrics on the reforming Pope. It had almost been voted by acclamation that Popery was changed. that the bloody deeds of past times were to be attributed to the barbarism of the age, and not at all to the spirit of the papacy, and that the pontifical system was perfectly compatible with constitutional and liberal government, and the progress of the human race. This was what Pius IX wished the world to believe. And had he but succeeded in making the world believe this, he would have carried his point. He would have added a luster and authority to the chair of Peter unknown to it for ages. Poor J.A. Wiley didn't know that he actually did succeed. The revolted masses would have returned to the creed had they abjured, and come thronging back to the altars from which infidelity had driven them away. recognize now the universal call to the Roman Catholic Church, even in Protestant churches now, they recognize the Pope. Recognizing in pious at once the pontiff and the reformer, the high priest of religion and the foremost champion of liberty, how willingly would the nations have surrendered the movement into his hands. And, once in his hands, he would have known well how to turn it to account, making it the harbinger of a new era of dominion and glory to the Popedom, and of iron bondage to Europe. Such were the visions of the Vatican, The conspiracy was widespread. The bishops and priests throughout the Catholic world were taught how to play their part, including the infiltration into Protestant seminaries in the 19th century. The church ostentatiously marched in the van as if she had been the originator of the movement and was nobly guiding it to its goal. Prayers were offered in the cathedrals and parish churches of France for Pius IX and his reforms. The banners were taken into the chapels and blessed. Trees of liberty were set up amid papal benedictions, and in the public processions, priests of all orders were seen to mingle. The blouse of the Democrat and the frock of the Burgios were interspersed with the robe of the parish couret, the cowl of the Capuchin, and the robe of the Franciscan. There was at that time no small danger of the infidelity of the masses passing into superstition and of potpourri thus rooting itself afresh in the popular mind of Europe. But from a calamity so great, it pleased Providence to deliver the world by riding confusion upon the councils of the Vatican. And when we speak of deliverance, we would not insinuate that all peril from the papacy is at an end, but only that the insidious and dangerous device of maintained with great plausibility and carried out with immense clout during well near three years, has been completely exposed and defeated." So he thought. And this we are disposed to regard as no white mercy. A crisis arose in the movement, which might have been foreseen, but for which no amount of papal ingenuity could possibly provide. Big promises and sham reforms, all as yet which the reforming pontiff had given, could no longer suffice. The masses were in earnest, and boons were now demanded, great, substantial, and sweeping, such as would have laid the papal supremacy in the dust. A free press, the secularization of the papal government, and the introduction of the representative and constitutional element in the form of chambers. It was to prevent such demands ever being made that Pius IX had placed himself at the head of the movement. An astute and upholder of the infallibility and supremacy as any pope who ever flourished in the Dark Ages. Pius IX resolved not to yield, and after a short space spent in shuffling, he openly broke with the movement and cast himself into the arms of the absolutist and reactionary powers. He commenced his reforming career with an amnesty which set loose from prison thieves, robbers, and even worse criminals. Kind of like what the Democrats have done in 2020 because of the COVID, the deadly political virus. And he closed within an amnesty which consigned to a dungeon, or drove into exile, the most virtuous and patriotic citizens of Rome. And thus, the spell by which Pius had hoped to charm into peace, the furies of the revolution, broke utterly in his hands. Driven from this high ground, the papacy has renewed the struggle in a much less advantageous position. having been obliged to drop the mask of reform, it advances against Christianity and liberty under its own form and with its old weapons, coercion and the sword. Nowadays it's the mainstream media. This so far is well. One plan, organized by the Jesuits and worked by them, is at this moment in operation in all the countries of Europe. and still in operation today in the year 2020. And the date of this reading 12-21-2020. And when we trace its workings, so far as we have access to know them, we exhibit the present state and tactics of Potpourri. Potpourri, then, has gone back to its ancient and natural allies, from whom it had been parted for a brief space. and the two, having manifestly one interest, will probably remain united till both sink into one common perdition. Matters have come to this pass, that nothing but the sword of the state can save the spiritual power, and nothing but the policy of the church can wield the sword of the state. This, both parties clearly perceive. Accordingly, the Jesuits, whom the revolutionary outbreak of 1848 had driven away, have been recalled, and a virtual compact entered in two with them. Lend us your power, say the Jesuits, and we will give you our wisdom. We will save the vessel of the state. Only we must sit at the helm. And at the helm they do sit, see, and they still sit at the helm. The Jesuits are at this moment the real rulers of Europe and the United States of America. And from the one end of it to the other they pursue the same object and act upon the same tactics. Their scheme of reconquering Europe by the pretext of reform, having come to naught, they have been compelled to fall back upon their ancient and approved method of rule, open, undisguised force. Europe is at present under the government of the Saber. This is the Jesuit perception, or prescription, for curing it of its madness. The first object of the Jesuits is to abrogate the liberties which the revolution of 1848 inaugurated. They know that liberty and Protestantism are twin powers, that the alliance between despotism and potpourri is now of a thousand years standing, and that the papal supremacy is incompatible with the order of things introduced by the revolution. more especially with universal suffrage and a free press. The first requisites, therefore, to the restoration of their power is the suppression of the rights of 1848. I want you all to think about what I'm reading to you now, what was going on in 1848, and transfer it over to the 21st of December in the year 2020 and see if it's not identical. Look deep. You'll see it. They dare not, by edict, proclaim these rights null and void, but they provisionally abrogate them. The violence of the masses is the pretext alleged for placing the great cities and several whole kingdoms of the continent under martial law. Think about that. Think about that. It is of course intended by the Jesuits that this provisional state shall become the permanent and normal condition of Europe, their new normal. Thus they attempt insidiously to rivet their former chains upon the nations. They are wise in their generation. A glance at the past history of Europe shows that in every country in which Reformation advanced so far as to introduce constitutional government, Protestantism has kept its ground, whereas in those countries where the government was not reformed, whatever progress the reformed religion had made, the people have fallen back again into potpourri. If they know also enough of Europe at this hour to be aware that we're Poland, we're Bohemia, we're Italy, and we may add Spain, were these nations to acquire a constitutional government, these countries would not remain a single day under the papal yoke. It is their absolute regime alone that prevents the immediate erection of a Protestant national church in Poland and Bohemia. A Christian church would be formed in Rome before the sacerdotal government. No sooner did Piedmont become a constitutional kingdom in the spring of 1848 than the Waldensian Church obtained its religious freedom. and its members their constitutional rights, while the despotism of Russia to this day excludes the missionary from her Asiatic provinces. These facts show that the Jesuits have good cause for plotting the overthrow of the Liberties of 1848, just as the same as they're trying to do to the Liberties of 1776. They have attacked these liberties one by one. First, the press groans at its former chains. In France, in Austria, in Naples, and in short, all over Catholic Europe, the press is the object of prosecution, of fine, and not unfrequently of actual suspension. Of course, that's not happening anymore. Obviously, the press is their main weapon. This rigor is not limited to newspapers, but extends to all useful books, and especially to the Bible. As an instance, we may mention that in the spring of 1850, the priests prosecuted two printers of Florence for having, under the government of the Republic, printed a translation of the New Testament in Italian and that on the express ground of their having published the gospel in the vulgar tongue so that everyone may be enabled to read it. Thus they show their dread of letters and their hankering after the darkness of bygone times. The excuse put forward for these tyrannical proceedings is that a free press is propagating communism. These persons forget that under the rigorous censorship of Germany, nothing flourished so much as an atheistic pantheism. Thank you, secular humanism is another name for atheistic pantheism. Occasion is taken on the same ground to molest colporteurs in their distribution of tracts and Bibles, especially in France where this work is mostly carried on. The Jesuits are making prodigious efforts in all the countries of Europe to get into their hands the education of the youth. By the way, that business with the publication of tracts and stuff, now it's all in the Arminian gospel. Every bit of them are Arminianism. The Chick Bible Society for one of them. They're the Chick Tract Society. Nothing but Arminianism. In Ireland, the Synod of Thurlls condemned the government colleges and prohibited the Romanist youth from attending them because their chairs were not filled solely with Romanists. This Synod went enacted, which enacted, in effect, that darkness is better than light and that the light ought to be put under anathema all over Ireland and all over the world if possible, was fittingly presided over by a man who believes that the Pope is infallible and that the earth stands still. Same thing happened today. Rupert Murdoch, the media moguls, the barons, they're all Roman Catholics, they all support Rome. In France, a bill was introduced into the assembly by the Jesuit minister, Monsieur Fallot, and passed, giving to the prefects the power of dismissing the departmental schoolmasters. So, early as April 1850, not fewer than 4,000 schoolmasters, suspected of a leaning to Protestantism or to Communism, had been dismissed on the complaint of the parish curé. These discussions on education brought to light the existence of a feeling in favor of a spiritual or mental tyranny in quarters where it was least suspected. We allude to Messieurs Thiers, de Tocqueville, and others. No sooner do the Jesuits regain their ascendancy at Naples than they commence their war against education. By a decree of the 27th of October, 1849, whoever is engaged in public or private instruction must appear before a council to be interrogated on the Catechism of the Christian Doctrine, and can only exercise their office by permission permit, which simply means that the Jesuits are able to dictate what is to be taught to the youth at Naples, whilst the civil law will punish any deviation from their orders. Brothers and sisters, do you not see the same thing in America with our education or lack thereof? The arrow points straight to Rome, to the Jesuits. They're doing no different now than they did 150 years ago, 170 years ago. By a decree of the Minister of Instruction at Naples, issued in December 1849, all students are placed under a commission of ecclesiastics and are obliged to enroll themselves in some lecherous congregation or society. All schools, public and private, are placed under the same arbitrary law. The schoolmasters are bound to take all their pupils above 10 years of age to one of the congregations and to make a monthly return of their attendance. And since that time, the atrocious catechism described by Mr. Gladstone, which teaches that kings are divine and that popes can dispense with oaths and that all liberals are the children of the devil, they got that part right, and will be eternally damned, they got that part right too, has been introduced into the schools and is now conned by the children. In Austria and Germany they are not less busy attacking knowledge under pretense of diffusing it. Thus do the Jesuits strive to lead back the mind of Europe to its dungeon. The shackles which infidelity taught the fathers to throw off are to be riveted betimes upon the sons. And also they've gone for the mind now instead of the body. changing tactics. In the latter years of Napoleon's career, the condition of Roman Catholicism seemed desperate, and it was then that a small but brilliant band of literary men undertook to restore its fortunes. Lemonnet, Bonald wrote augmentative and eloquent works, defending Romanism and attacking its adversaries. Their works made a great sensation and gathered a party around them. They lent mainly upon the Roman court, the restored Bourbons and Mennonites. They were absolutist in their politics, and their great success seduced them into measures of an extremely despotic character. Under Louis XVIII, bloody persecutions were recommended in the south of France, and the Jesuits kept assassins in their pay. Marshals of France were obliged to walk in processions and carry a candle. under the penalty of forfeiting the favor of their sovereign. As a consequence, the Revolution of 1830 broke out and fell upon the Jesuits like a thunderbolt. They saw their error and resolved henceforward not to lean upon governments but to operate directly upon the people through the instrumentality of the press, the pulpit, and the confessional. which is partially true now. They have control of all of it. The politicians, the governments, the press, all of it. The interval since 1830 has been occupied in this way by the priesthood. But it does not appear that their success has been great, for it is a fact too obvious to be denied. that infidelity, under its various forms of socialism, communism and atheism, is more widely spread among the French people at this moment than it was in 1830. But every new disaster that befalls their system, instead of discouraging them, only stimulates to greater activity. And since 1848, their zeal has been prodigious. They are in course of filling the schools with teachers, thoroughly devoted to the priests. New school books have been compiled, and the main object kept in view in their compilation is the initiation of the youth into the absurdities of potpourri. The following may be taken as a sample of these books. of the tracts of the Blessed Alphonse di Liguiore, which the priests are in the habit of putting into the hands of their scholars and catechumens, there is one in great ardor of sanctity in the seminaries, convents of young females, and in all the institutions under the influence of the Romish clergy, entitled Paraphrase de Salve Regina. It was designed to recommend the worship of the Virgin, and amongst other methods to gain this end, it condescended to tell the following story, quote, There lived at Venice, when it is not said, there lived at Venice a celebrated lawyer who had enriched himself by fraud and all sorts of illicit practices. His soul was in a most deplorable state. And the only thing that saved him from the doom he so richly merited was his reverence for the Virgin, to whom he every day repeated a certain prayer. This appeared from the following melodramatic occurrence. One day, a Capuchin father was dining with him. The lawyer, after having shown him all the curiosities of his house, told his reverend friend that he had one more thing wonderful still to show him. An ape. the phoenix of its kind. He serves me as a valet, said the advocate. He waits at the table, washes the glasses, attends to the door. In fact, does everything. Ah, said the capuchin, shaking his head. Provided it really is an ape, let me see the animal. The ape, after a long search, was found secreted under a bed and would by no means move. Infernal beast, cried the monk, come out, and I command thee in the name of God to say who thou art. The ape replied that he was a demon and that he waited for the first day that the advocate should omit to say his prayer to the virgin to stifle him and carry off his soul to hell as the Lord had given him permission. Close quote. Such is the instruction which Jesuitism furnishes to the youth of France. It would scarce be possible to show greater contempt for the human understanding. Signs and lying wonders is one mark of the predicted apostasy. In all ages, miracles have been wrought by the prophets of Rome in support of their pretensions. These are dangerous weapons in an age when knowledge is somewhat diffused. Nevertheless, Rome has again, in her straits, had resource to them. Somewhere about the time that the Pope had returned to Rome, a famous image of the Virgin at Rimini was seen to wink. Intelligence was quickly spread of the miracle. Crowds were assembled. The prodigy was repeated day by day, and day by day rich offerings continued to be heaped upon the shrine of the Madonna. It was now reported that another image at another Italian town had been seen to wink, and presently there was a whole shower of winking Madonnas. We asked, is the Pope infallible? And we answered by a wink. It is difficult seeing the logical connection between the wink and the infallibility. The faithful, of course, will take the wink as a proof that the Pope is infallible, but others may take it as a meaning just the opposite. Did Rome understand her position? An attempt to establish her doctrines by miracles would be the last thing she would think of. The infallibility is the ground on which she rests all belief. When, therefore, she brings forward a miracle as a proof of any dogma, she, in reality, shifts her ground. She commits a grievous soulcism and argument. And, instead of proving that she is infallible, she proves that she is an imposter. Now, Paris, too, was the scene of some miracles. Peter Paramount, A plain obese peasant from Grenoble appeared in Paris in March 1850 and announced that he had seen the Savior and received from him a commission to heal the sick and convert the world. He lay during Passion Week. The stigmata impressed on his body and the blood distilling drop by drop from his sacred wounds. When the sun went down, The wounds ceased to bleed. He cured the diseased who visited him by the touch. Peter Paramond was evidently a tool of the priests by whom the whole affair was arranged with great adroitness. Some of the first Antimists of Paris examined the miracle worker and pronounced the whole a juggle. A Veronica was seen to shed tears at Naples, doubtless over the misfortunes of the exiled pontiff. A Madonna at Rome was observed to nod with special grace to certain of her devotees. But the priest was a bungler and permitted the corns to be seen. Veritable portraits of Christ and the Virgin said to have been discovered in some subterranean vault of the ancient palace of the Senate at Rome, where they had lain undiscovered for 18 centuries, were hawked about in France. During winter, the friars in Naples and in some parts of Italy have been zealously warning their flocks from the pulpit against the three great evils, revolution, communism, and Protestantism. I heard, says a Continental correspondent writing from Naples last December, I heard a preacher a few days since from the pulpit of a church exclaim, mind what you are about. You may before long fall into the deplorable state of the English and lose all hope of salvation. A deep veil rests above the confessional, but the activity of the priests in Rome and every other department at this moment leaves no doubt that the powerful engine is worked with energy and effect. My apologies for a bit of a Scottish blur. Sometimes that happens to me. I meant no offense to any Scott listening to this. The Church of Rome has carefully noted every phase of society at this moment and with her usual flexibility and tact she suits herself to all and has a separate argument for each particular class. Two governments trembling in the presence of the fierce democraties She represents herself as the only bulwark of order. She bids kings lean on her and so save their thrones and scepters which otherwise will be swept away. She calls on those shocked by the impieties and blasphemies of socialism to ponder the consequences of forsaking the true faith. telling them that if they rebel against the reaching of the church they plunge into the abyss of atheism. To the propertied man who trembles at the confiscation and pillage which a triumphant communism would bring with it. You see, I'm going to read that again for you. This is Wiley, J.A. Wiley in 1851 saying the same thing. To the propertied man who trembles at the confiscation and pillage which a triumphant communism would bring with it. She exhibits herself as alike, able to preserve his earthly and to augment his heavenly goods. In the panic that is abroad, She knows that men have not the calmness to inquire whether the Church does not need protection rather than possess the ability to bestow it. The upper strata of society in France too are pervaded by a great anxiety to create power, to discover new principles and sources of authority. Wow, sounds like our Congress in America. And, what's so likely as the influence of the Church to tame and subjugate those passions which the Revolution has let loose? Up to the present hour, ever since the Great Outbreak of 1848, they have found out no principle of authority except downright force. The army and the police, pretty much blended into one, is their only instrument of government They are not unnaturally anxious to supplement their vast array of physical force with a certain amount of moral power by enlisting the priesthood on their side. They look to the Pope as a kind of moral fouché, a spiritual prefect of police for Europe. These statesmen speaking generally, or we must accept Monsieurs Montalembert and Fallot, They care nothing for the church as a church. They never go to confession or to mass. But they need the church for the maintenance of their own authority. Kind of like our presidents who claim religion in order to keep the people of faith pacified. Same difference. Their religion is that of Pope's Sir Balaam. Some of you guys call him Balaam. I pronounce it Baalam, who, whilst he himself was seeking to make his fortune in corrupt politics, sent his wife and family to sermon. How far this profiteous alliance, prompted by fearing necessity, is likely to promote the ends of either statesmen or churchmen, we shall inquire when we come to glance at the favorable symptoms of Europe. Meanwhile, we note it as one of the grand currents in the Catholic world and one of the main causes which have led to an apparent return of many of the higher classes to Romanism. Thus everywhere we behold a movement toward civil and religious despotism. Rome is in the van of the march. Okay, that's the end of chapter 1. I'm going to go on and read chapter 2 too. So, chapter two, the New Catholic League and threatened crusade against Protestantism. We greatly err if we regard the above in the light of unconnected efforts. They are parts of a colossal plan hatched in the Vatican for the purpose of restoring arbitrary government and papal domination over all Europe. The European, and Wiley capitalizes the word democracy, the European democracy is the modern Sphinx. The dynasties of the continent must solve her riddle or be torn in pieces. They must either rule that democracy or annihilate it. Should they resolve on the first, not only must they feign to be in love with what at heart they abhor, but they must be prepared to grant concessions unlimited in magnitude and endless in number. Think about it. It is now too late to adopt such a policy. none know better than the ruling powers themselves that were it adopted, it would speedily issue in the complete suspension of their functions and the total annihilation of their authority. This is why revolution in the US is so important. The whole world depends on it. In the face of constitutions ignored, oaths and promises violated, and the profuse expenditure of blood which darkened the history of the past three years. The least approach towards conciliation would be sternly repulsed by the Democratic Party. The second alternative only remains, coercion. the democracy and, along with that, whatever is free, whether in religion or in government, must be crushed promptly and universally. Again, think about it. I'm going to read that again. The second alternative only remains. Coercion. The democracy and, along with that, whatever is free, whether in religion or in government, must be crushed promptly and universally. The last spark must be trodden out, else the conflagration will blaze afresh. In this war, the infallible church presents herself to the absolutist state as by far its oldest and staunchest ally. Her organization, which is the most flexible that exists, her influence, which operates in a domain from which that of the state is shut out. For till the intellect and the conscience are blindfolded by superstition, Power cannot succeed in permanently enslaving men. I'm going to read that part again. Until the intellect and the conscience are blindfolded by superstition, power cannot succeed in permanently enslaving men. All are all now made available. They're all made available. Moreover, it is equally the interest of both to quell this revolt. And what's so likely as that a community of interest should suggest unity of action? A priori. Then we might infer the existence of a grand conspiracy against the liberties of Europe. even did not the facts already stated, and those we now proceed to state, render the existence of such a conspiracy undoubted. We do not, of course, know the day or the hour when this criminal confederacy was formed. My guess would be 1540, but that's my guess. Such transactions belong to the darkness. But the public measures of the conspirators enable us to read the history of their most secret hours and to unveil the character of their deepest plots. And again, I would recommend you, after listening to this book, buy it. It's cheap. It's like a buck on Amazon Kindle. Read it. Look these things up on the internet. See if they can even be found. See if they can be found. Check it out for yourself. A crusade has been undertaken simultaneously in all the countries of Europe against civil and religious liberty. This bespeaks concert. The agents who conduct that crusade are the same everywhere, the priest and the Sbiro. Does not this denote confederacy between the ecclesiastical and the civil authorities for their joint domination? Ecclesiastical and civil authorities for joint domination. You mean like the 501c3? Tax-exempt status to control preachers, to keep the people, to tell them to stand down? Hmm, I wonder. The Catechism and the Bayonet, the Jesuit and the Gendarme, the Church and the Army are combined and vigorous action, or are in combined and vigorous action all over Europe. Look at Rome under Pius IX, the era of the worst popes, has been revived. The return from Gaeta formed the commencement of a policy as astute in its foreign relations and more oppressive in its home administration than even that of Hildebrand. Infallibility sits behind a hedge of bayonets. Its assessors are described as assassins. galley slaves and thieves, and the subordinate agents of its government are undoubtedly spies and police. The patriot, the scholar, the constitutionalist have all been swept off to prison or sent into exile. Felons only are at large who celebrate the Saturnalia of License under the arch-felon of the Vatican. The fisherman's net is of steel, as its victims know. The keys are no mere symbol now, seeing Peter's successor as become a jailer. Rome, full of dungeons and desolate hearths and sincatured with fresh graves, sits cowering beneath the baleful shadow of pontifical despotism. The word of God dare not enter those gates within which the vicar of God sits enthroned. In addition of Diodati's Bible, amounting to some thousands, which was commenced by the American mission under the Roman Republic, lies locked up in the vaults of the Quirinal. The incarcerated Bibles and the incarcerated Romans tell the same tale. They proclaim the unchanged and unchangeable hostility of Rome to religious and civil freedom. Do you understand that, brothers and sisters? Rome is hostile to the First Amendment of our Constitution here in the United States. Civil and religious freedom. What do you think the government's trying to crush now? Same thing. Who do they work for? Rome. At Naples, the same object is pursued by precisely the same methods. Whatever coercion, mental and physical, can do to make a people swallow down the doctrine that kings are divine and popes infallible is now being done at Naples. Same thing here in this country, that the members of Congress, the Senate, and the House are above the law and can't be prosecuted. Which is a lie, but that's the lie they tell and everybody believes it. The government is conducted by priests, police, and soldiers. The Capitol is full of spies. The confessional is worked to discover opinion. Like Facebook. What do they say on Facebook before you even type? What's on your mind? to discover your mind, to discover your opinion, and the police to extirpate it. There too, as in Rome, light, and above all, Protestant light, is the object of profoundest dread. The press is locked, the Bible is prohibited, and the Jesuit laborers end his special vocation as a propagator of ignorance or of something worse. The few schools taught by British Protestants have all been closed and the whole youth of the country are under Jesuit tuition. On Naples, the gaze of the civilized world, that's G-A-Z-E, not G-A-Y-S. The gaze or the look of the civilized world has been fixed by the astounding disclosures of a British statesman. Let us look narrowly at this model kingdom and its model king. For such papists, account Ferdinand. Ferdinand. Those of you who may not know him can equate him with his wife Isabella and Christopher Columbus. If they even teach that school anymore. Here we behold a specimen of what all kings would be were the jurisdiction and teaching of the Romish church universal. The acts of Ferdinand, which have filled the world with horror, are but the dogmas of Liguiori applied to the science of government. The tragedy now in progress in Naples commenced in dissimilation and Jesuitism. In 1848, the king inaugurated constitutional government by swearing, quote, in the awful name of the most holy and almighty God, to whom alone it appertains to read the depths of the heart, and whom we loudly invoke as the judge of the simplicity of our intentions." Promises and oaths were speedily followed by perfidies and perjuries. The Constitution, so solemnly inaugurated and which included a limited monarchy and two houses, with a guarantee for personal liberty and the legality of imposts only when imposed by Parliament, has been abrogated in every particular. But this crime is small compared with the atrocious maxim which has been to justify it, that the king's right is divine, that his powers are unlimited, and that no oaths which restrict his prerogative can bind him. Hmm, I wonder what kind of institutions in the United States and England have that kind of power. I'm kind of thinking judiciary. Right Orthodox doctrine according to Liguiore. A philosophical catechism has been compiled by a priest who acts, of course, under his superiors, and is now, in virtue of a government order used in all the schools, quote, a work, one of the most singular and detestable, says Mr. Gladstone, I have ever seen, close quote. The doctrine of this catechism is that all who hold liberal opinions will be eternally damned. I actually can agree with that. That kings may violate as many oaths as they please in the cause of papal and monarchical absolutism. and that the head of the church has authority from God to release consciences from oaths when he judges that there is suitable cause for it, close quote, which actually is a violation of the eighth commandment. Ninth commandment. Not bearing false witness against your neighbor, ninth commandment. In the history of the papacy, Demoralizing doctrines have invariably been the prelude to dreadful tragedies, and so it has been in Naples. A Geoffrey's redemptive view, ferocious, cowardly, bloodthirsty, and as thoroughly the creature of the court as was the infamous minion of James VII, presides over the Neapolitan tribunals. By the way, that word I was trying to pronounce is spelled R-E-D-I-V-I-V-U-S. Maybe one of you guys know what it says, how to pronounce it. The indiscriminate and insatiable tyranny of this man has swept off all who cooperated with the court in its brief but hallow attempt at constitutional rule. The patriot, the scholar, the gentleman are all in prison. from 20,000 to 30,000 political prisoners, according to the estimate of Mr. Gladstone, are in the dungeons of Ferdinand. We wish that, like the novelist, we could take a single captive. This clanking of chains on every side, and this gathering of haggard faces, row upon row, till the woe-struck assemblage grows into thousands and tens of thousands, but distract and overwhelm us. These miserable crowds lie pent up in filthy prisons, heavily loaded with irons, and see the light of day only when it gilds the bars in the roof of their vault or cell. Others have been disposed of in Ischia and the adjoining islands on the Neapolitan coast, where they rot in dungeons many feet below sea level. One cannot point his foot on Neapolitan earth, but it is above a dungeon. Where in works of fiction shall we find a tragedy like this? The genius of Shakespeare himself never painted a mightier woe. But the question remains, who is responsible for all this suffering? We replied by asking, Who taught Ferdinand to revoke the Constitution? Who gave him a dispensation from an oath sworn in the awful name of the Most Holy and Almighty God? Who wrote the Catechism which adjudges to eternal torments all who hold liberal opinions? And who, in fine, are the busy agents in this persecution? the priests of the Roman Church. That church is responsible for all this suffering. The 30,000 victims in Naples groan in chains that such things as purgatory and transubstantiation with all the revenues therefrom arising may not be swept away and the rule of infallibility exploded as a monstrosity. The Neapolitan Sabiro, the French Bombardier, and the Austrian Croat are the triple alliance which props up the imposture of the Vatican. And whatever enormities they may choose to perpetrate, Rome must stand accountable for them at the bar of both human and divine justice. And I agree a thousand percent, wholeheartedly, without reservation, Rome must stand accountable for all of it at the bar of both human and divine justice. We know they're going to get it at divine justice, but they deserve it from human justice as well. Old West justice if necessary. Of the concordance with Spain and Germany, we have already spoken. The object of these deeds is to bind these countries more firmly than ever to the Roman sea. Claims are put forward to which these governments would not have listened in ages termed less enlightened than our own. And if granted, they will reduce the people to a pitch of vassalage unequaled by anything that obtained even in the dark ages. of a kindred character is the Concordat with Tuscany. The instrument establishes, for the first time since the existence of the Florentine state, the complete subjection of the state to the Church, in all matters which the latter may choose to call spiritual. It empowers the Pope to send any number of bulls into the country and the bishops to enforce them, subject to no control. That's no oversight. It erects an ecclesiastical censorship over books and opinions like Twitter and Facebook. And it declares that the property of the church shall be disposed of, not according to the laws of the land, but according to canon law. Those sovereign rights which the signiori handed down and the Medici defended, the secular power has conspired to surrender into the hands of the spiritual. Between the Croats of Vienna and the priests of the Vatican, liberty is extinguished throughout Italy. The Alps and the Pyrenees enclose a region where men walk about in chains. The Lucifer of this pandemonium is the Pope. If he can prevent it, never shall a single Bible cross the Alps, and eternal darkness must be the fate of Italy. France is not so retrograde, only because party and the press still have some power there. Louis-Napoleon has sold himself and his country to the Pope, that the Pope may make him president for life. He has gone to the Vatican, as Saul went to the Witch of Endor. that he may obtain by sorcery what he cannot command by talent. Thus it is that European Yazidiism goes on. The Pope worships the devil that he may give him the world, and Louis-Napoleon worships the Pope that he may give him France. Hence, a great apparent revival of Popery in that country. The Jesuits, being masters of the president, have their own way and are uncontrolled, save by the Mountain and the socialist masses. Pretensions, which have lain dormant in France for 27 years, have been revived within the past 12 months. Congregations and confraternities are again springing up. Crosses and calvaries are rising on every road. The Jesuits spend the night in hatching plots and the day in running about to execute them. They get up with equal adroitness, sermons and miracles. They enact the schoolmaster and pull the strings at a Madonna show. They busy themselves in tracking and prosecuting the journalist and the cold portier. They haunt the clubs and the saloons and introduce themselves into families and into, and I want you to hear this, and into every sort of society. The Abbe Dwapaloo. and his associates could not be more bustling and important, though Charles X, in his character of a religious ascetic, had returned from the tomb. Everywhere Jesuitism is seizing on waxing youth, erecting new colleges, expelling all kinds of professors. They say liberal here, but Wiley's definition of liberal is not the same definition as it is in 2020. Expelling certain professors, dismissing the communal schoolmasters in thousands, and obliging those who fill their places to take the pupils to church and to all the services. The Jesuits are drawing their web over all the country in the shape of friars of the Christian doctrine and lay brothers. In most parts of Italy, a confession ticket is demanded as the passport to public office and private employment. And it is not improbable that it will soon be so in France. Louis-Napoleon, whom the Jesuits endure as the mere locum tenens of the Bourbon, leans upon the Church, and the Church upon Louis-Napoleon. And a powerful army in the hands of the President has given unexpected but fictitious strength to Romanism in France. In Austria, Prince Schwarzenberg has restored in all their rigor the twin tyrannies of Jesuitism and Absolutism. While all other religious bodies have had their privileges abridged, those of the Church of Rome have been fully restored. The Placidum Regum has been abolished. and the Pope now exercises in Austria uncontrolled power. Prussia. Uncontrolled power in the appointment of bishops. An association has been formed by the machinations of the Jesuits called the Young Catholic Association. Look it up, see if it still exists. Its recruits are drawn mainly from the youth in the schools. Every member on entering must swear fidelity to the Pope and promise to concur in the establishment of missions throughout Austria and in the realization of religious liberty. I just thought about something guys and gals. The Young Catholic Association. Didn't some of our Supreme Court justices, weren't they part of that? And a lot of our senators, congressmen, other politicians at the local, state, federal level. Hmm. Young Catholic Association. I want to read this again. The recruits of this Young Catholic Association, don't know whether it's called that now, but the recruits are drawn mainly from the youth of the schools. Every member on entering must swear fidelity to the Pope. and promised to concur in the establishment of missions throughout Austria and in the realization of religious liberty. And now not just Austria, I'm sure it's the U.S. too, and England, and Australia, and New Zealand, all of Europe, everywhere. This is a phrase which can mean only a right to extirpate Protestantism, seeing the Romanists already enjoy full liberty in Austria. During the summer of 1850, Jesuit intrigue had well precipitated Austria in a sanguinary conflict upon Prussia. War was averted only by the concessions and humiliations of the King of Prussia at Olmuz. Protestant congregations in Hungary have been sadly harassed, and it was universally observed that during the negotiations of 1850, the troops of Austria were quartered exclusively in Protestant districts, after the approved modes of punishing nonconformity set by Ferdinand II. at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, and by our own Charles II during the Twenty-Eight Years' Persecution. And now the House of Habsburg has fully returned to its traditionary maxims of rule and has completed its reaction by its edict in August of this year, 1851. proclaiming the will of the Emperor, the sole constitution of the country, and rendering the Cabinet and the Council of State accountable to the Emperor alone. Thus, the last shred of constitutionalism has been swept away, and the naked fabric of pure, unmitigated despotism has been set up in its stead. Francis Joseph furnishes another example of the historical fact that the vassals of the church are uniformly the oppressors of their subjects. That the Jesuit should nestle once more under the shadow of Schonbrunn is not surprising, but it may well astonish us that Prussia should open up its gates to these men. Yet the fact is as undoubted as it is melancholy. Frederick William, the professedly Protestant king of Prussia, has taken the viper to his bosom and, with his kingdom, has joined the great anti-Protestant league. This man's pedantry in speech making and tinkering in the work of government, his heroism in words and shortcomings in deeds, His voice, which is the voice of a Protestant, and his hands, which are the hands of a Papist, make him the James VI of Germany. In a recent tour in his dominion, he received the Popish bishops with smiles and genuflections, while he could find nothing but frowns and sharp reproofs for his Protestant ministers. And why? Well because they had permitted the Jesuits to outdo them in the courtly work of preaching the doctrine of divine right and implicit obedience. Constitutional journals are silenced and liberal professors are expelled. I'm going to substitute the word liberal for certain professors because again the word liberal in Wiley's language in his time does not mean the same thing now. Liberal means free. free from, you know, free from whatever. Free from oppression. Free from silencing. Okay. Nowadays liberal doesn't mean that. Okay. The Jesuits have undertaken to inculcate no precepts but those of order and loyalty and therefore they are free of Prussia. They have descended the Rhine bringing social dissensions and family discords in their train, and have now penetrated into all parts of the kingdom. There is no power in either the doctrines of Hegel and Fichte, or in the pietist party of Gerlach and Stahl, to resist the strides which despotic Austria is making towards political and ecclesiastical dominion in Prussia. Let Austria once get her barbarian but Catholic provinces into the German Confederation, and the fate of Prussia as a Protestant power is sealed. The polypis arms of Roman Catholicism will be stretched all over northern Germany. Unhappy Frederick William. When he struck hands with Austria and the Jesuits, He little thought what woes he was entailing on his house and on his kingdom. Nor is it without significance as tending to prove that this reaction towards political and papal despotism in Germany is the result of concert and combination. That in the July of this summer, 1851, the Grand Duke of Analt issued a proclamation to my people. This document, which read as if some greater potentate had held the pen, told the world that the German governments have pledged themselves to each other energetically to withstand the further development of free principles. Protestant principles. From the greatest to the pettiest despot, all have their faces turned towards Rome as the grand central and model despotism Every reforming and Protestant influence is extinguished. Every constitutional organ and party is crushed. The constitutionalist and the missionary are equally the objects of jealousy. The Jesuit and the jailer only can move freely about. Thus, the arms of continental Europe are once more at the service of a power which would stifle every aspiration towards liberty and would entomb the world in the dense shadow of one colossal despotism." This is what's going to happen to the world if the U.S. falls. I guarantee you that. If the patriots in this country do not stand up to the tyranny in government, this is what's going to happen. All that you've heard of in this book up to this point, you can bet it's going to happen here. The object of this league, avowed almost in so many words, is to undo the Reformation in both its political and spiritual effects. But success in this object is impossible, so long as Britain remains a free and Protestant country. This the papal powers very clearly perceive. Their policy, therefore, is either to convert Britain to Romanism and Absolutism, or, if that is impossible, to put it down. To convert Britain is the design of the papal aggression. First, by the erection of the hierarchy. Second, by introducing Popish bishops into the House of Lords. Next, by taking into their own hands the whole ecclesiastical and educational machinery of Ireland. Next, by bringing over England to Romanism by means of Tractarianism. Think of the Tractarian Bible Society. Aided by the manipulation or the multiplication of Popish cathedrals, convents, and schools. Finally, by changing the coronation oath, marrying the heir apparent to a Popish princess, and along with his conversion and accession to the throne, inaugurating their full dominion or full domination in the country. But if we resist this aggression, we may prepare for one of a more physical kind. It is infallibility, or the sword, that Rome now offers to Britain. The exigencies of the times have forced this course upon the papacy. Rome must advance. To stand still were, in her case, and in that of the absolutist powers, To stand still means irretrievable ruin. They have an infidel democracy behind them, and to conquer it, they must precipitate themselves upon Protestant Britain. For such despotisms as they are now attempting to set up cannot coexist on the same globe with British constitutionalism and the Protestant faith. Self-preservation then dictates this course, and numerous and unequivocal indications point to it as resolved upon. When Cardinal Wiseman arrived in the country, all the papal powers sent him their congratulations. But was this but a defiance to Protestantism? Numerous hints have been dropped by Romanist preachers and organs. that if their rights are denied, the arms of the Catholic powers will enforce them. But the universe has the merit of speaking frankly out. This is the leading pulpish organ in Europe, and doubtless expresses the sentiments of its friends when it preaches, as it now does, a new crusade against Protestantism. A heretic examined and convicted by the Church, says El Uribe, used to be delivered over to the secular power and punished with death. Nothing has ever appeared to us more natural or more necessary. More than 100,000 persons perished in consequence of the heresy of Wycliffe, still a greater number by that of Jan Hus. It would not be possible to calculate the bloodshed caused by the heresy of Luther, and it is not yet over. After three centuries, we are at the eve of a recommencement." This is what they have in their minds, brothers and sisters, to kill us all. Such is the dreadful tragedy which is plotted. and the plotters are not at the pains decently to veil their enormously diabolical purpose. One great St. Bartholomew in Britain and the reign of absolutism will be established and the triumphs of the Vatican complete. From Naples with its 20,000 chained captives to Austrian garrison Hamburg there extends a chain of political forts linking together the various countries in one powerful confederacy which converges ominously on Britain. Pelion is piled upon Ossa and Ossa upon Pelion. Of this towering mass which threatens alike the pandemonium of democracy below and the heaven of constitutionalism and Protestantism above, the base is Russia. The apex is Rome. The ghost of the Middle Ages, or in this confederacy, the political and religious dogmas of these ages live over again. The ghost of the Middle Ages, we say, which the world believed had been laid forever at rest, has returned suddenly from its tomb of three centuries, and now stalks grimly through the awestruck and terrified nations of Europe with the meter of the church upon its brow and the iron truncheon of the state in its hand. Its foot is planted with deadly pressure upon the necks of its own subjects and its mailed arm is raised, that mailing is what soldiers used to wear in those days, a chain link mail. Its mailed arm is raised to strike down with one decisive blow that one country which is the home of freedom and of Protestantism. That's the end of chapter 2. And again, I'd like all of you, seriously, no matter how many times you hear this, check this out. Look at the similarities between what J.A. Wiley is writing about what's happening to England in 1851 and what has already happened, not only to England, but the United States now as well. Rome is ready to strike. And if we don't stop it, we might as well be committing suicide. We have the ability, at least in the United States. We bear arms. We have the constitution as our governing authority, not the politicians, not even the presidents. The constitution is our governing authority. And as long as that constitution is in force, we must defend ourselves at all costs or every horror that you've heard me read in this long book on the papacy will come to pass in this nation. That's all I've got for tonight. Two more chapters left and the book is finished. May the Lord Jesus Christ bless and preserve you all. This is Duane Lynn, your narrator.