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There is no learned man but -will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton .
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ROMANISM , ALIAS TERRORISM . ' Through the world , subduing-, chaining down The free immortal spirit . . . And with the terrort of futurity Mingling whate'er enchants and captivates . ' * Rogers't Italy . London , Nov . 19 , 1850 . Sir , —The opponents of Roman Catholicism generally affirm that it is the religion of man ' s corrupt and fallen nature . In this sentiment I cannot participate , believing , as I do , in the continual progression
of God , through man , as manifested m the growing intelligence and virtue of the race . I take it , therefore , that the polluted fountain of Romanism , so far from flowing out of man ' s corrupt nature ( as has been ignorantly said ) , rather flows into and corrupts man ' s nature . The whole system is fraught with religious terror . It is an appeal to the lowest principle of our nature—fear ! and by successfully appealing to , strengthens and promotes it . Fear runs through its everv ramification . In common with all false
religions , fear is its moving principle . It is the fulciment upon which the whole of its cumbrous and complicated machinery rests . It begins , continues , and ends in fear . Romanism makes men fear God just as children fear sprites and apparitions . They tremble at the thought of Him , they fly from they know not what , and seek refuge they know not ¦ w here . " While I suiter thy terrors I am distracted . " Men do not think half so badly of each other as most systems of theology make men think of God ! I solemnly believe that a corrupt Christianity has done a thousandfold more than all that Voltaire , Paine , Hume , and their compeers ever did to swell the ranks of infidelity and scepticism . Thinking men will not be swayed by terror ! They will
have no tyrant God ! If they have not presented to them as an object of religious worship , a Being around whom their affections can entwine , they will worship no being ! Romanism neither glorifies God nor regards man . Screwed down to earth by its wretched inventions , it cannot rise to the proper elevation from which it might view the glorious pinnacle of truth ! It deforms every beauty , distorts every fact , converts truth into a lie , appeals to man ' s meanest passions , and weakens instead of strengthens the hopes of nature . Christianity ( viewed apart from all conventionality ) perfects and completes these hopes , and chimes in unison with the souls aspirations " like music that harmonizes by its measure to the feelings that its notes have
awakened . " I would not be understood to insinuate that the Church of Rome possesses no Christianity . She does possess some . Just enough to give her a semblance of Christian , faith . Her creed is not altogether erroneous . There is a mixture oftruthinit ; but , as Cicero says , " the truth lies buried in a deep abyss . " "A . wondrous spell , Where true and false are with inferual art Close interwoven . "
The fear-principle rentiers Romanism a slavish religion . Christianity makes men free . " Where the ' spidt of the Lord is , there is liberty . " Romanism enslaves men . It not only enslaves the body , but it " cribs , cabins , and confines , " the mind . It cramps and petrifies the soul ' s energies . It renders human beings mere puppets and not men , without intention , without emotion , without will ! This jnental slavery exhibits itself outwardly , in bodily prostrations , which degrade human nature , insult religion , and dishonour God ! Man should approach his Maker not us a slave but as a child : not in fear but in confidence .
outward sign of an . inward sense . The entire teaching and discipline of the Church of Rome powerfully tends to crush the mind by producing inanition ! The will is no longer individual will , and " man is man by virtue of willing . " Free action , like free thought , is excluded . You have only to obey , and that blindly , without knowing the why or the wherefore . But to obey is not all ; you must believe , and that implicitly . Explicit faith , you dare not exercise
under pain of anathema ! However absurd the theories , however monstrous the definitions , however illogical the arguments , however heterodox the doctrines , they must invariably be received as infallible eternal truths . You dare not question , much less reject them . It is enough to satisfy every doubt that the Church has spoken , and she points to the scripture , " Hear the Church !" Nor are minds highly gifted exempt from the influence which the Church exerts . One of the most
distinguished Catholic laymen of his time * spoke thus , in a letter , dated May , 1826 , to the present Anglican Bishop of Cashcl : — " You taunt me with submission to priests ; you again seek to delude . I do not submit to this , that , or the other priest ; but I do submit readily , cheerfully , and at once to the voice of the Church , communicated to me by her ministers . " "When minds of a superior order are so influenced as to cause submission—judge of the total abnegation of will produced in the masses by that imdefinable
thing , the six letters—Church I There is a powerful machinery- employed by this spiritual Autocratrice to hold her subject under iron domination . Auricular Confession forms part of this machinery , and an important part , no doubt . Every Romanist arrived at the age of reason is bound by a decree of the Second General Council of Lateran to confess to a priest , at least once a-year , upon pain of excommunication and deprivation of Christian burial after death !
Oh , that is a fearful influence which causes the soul to empty itself into the ears of a man ! It is a death-power which deprives it of animation . The soul soon finds its incapacity to struggle or resist . It has lost its individuality ; or , rather , as Dante terms it , a transhumation haB been effected . The penitent ' s soul is no longer free either to act or think ! Philanthropists may talk of education , of the progress of knowledge , and of their good effects upon communities . 'Tis all very true ! But there is a counteracting influence at work—secretly labouring to outstrip ' the schoolmaster . " That power is the more to be feared because it is invisible . It cannot
be seen in operation ; but its effects can . i ou have already anticipated me . It is the Confessor ! Autocrat of the mind , he , as a consequence , possesses the body . Individuals , families , communities , are governed by him . There is no despotism like the priestly , and no domination more imperious . The priest is more than man — he is a god . No other man can make impressions like himso fixed , so indelible , and simply by his voice . Spiritual anatomist of the heart , he is familiar with the inward life of many . He sees the naked female soul reflected as in a mirror ! Its temptations ,
emotions , intentions , frailties , and sins ore all known to him ! He is the curator of the conscience , and possesses an omniscience which none but God alone can lay claim to . Why should ho not think himself superhuman ? The closest affinity we know of is that which arises from marriage . Yet where is the husband that can dive into the depths of his wife ' s bein ^—that is , familiar with her soul-workings ? The priest doe * and is / Closely as the husband might hold the heart of his wife , the priest has a dirccter influence over it . He moves it at his will . It is the iron ; he ie the magnet . There is a consociation between the penitent and
confessor which the affinity of marriage , dose as it is , can never reach ! Where is the wife that would or could reveal her heart-secrets to her husband ? O fearful state of slavery , not to be . surpassed , when a docile human soul is made to writhe in agitation and bend in abject lowliness at the feet of a proud ecclesiastic ! This is the completion of moral death . But auricular confession presents another and , perhaps , greater evil . It occasions familiarity with vice . It reveals to minds comparatively innocent the nature and degree of sin , and instructs in its remote and proximate causes , on which much may be said . G . Phillips Day , Formerly a Monk of the Order of Presentation .
When wo observe the Romanist in exorcising his devotions degiadingly prostrate his body , we must refer this external operation to the mind , itself feariully prostrated . The act is but an . after-act , the
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JUSTICE TO CATHOLICS . Nov . 18 , 1850 . Sir , —The disgraceful position which has been taken up by the Protestant party " at the present crisis , " and the storm of bigotry which has united all the discordant elements of the Protestant Church in one grand onslaught upon Popery , surely callb upon every enlightened lover of freedom to reecho your cry of Justice to Catholics . My principles are as far removed from Popery as cun possibly be ; but my
spirit burns within me at the shameless manner in which the Press and the Premier have thrown over all sympathy "with freedom and justice arbitris popularis aura ; and I fervently hope that the Liberal party will , in some conspicuous way , show the purity of their Christianity , as contrasted with the fanaticism of the Church . The Catholics may well point to the Established Church and say , " You embraced all that was necessary for your convenience and veryexistence in our Church ; you adopted all that was wanted to support a hierarchy of your own , and an authoritative system of teaching ; you separated yourselves from our communion , and established what you are ignorant enough to suppose a final system of truth , wilfully shutting your eyes to the fact that Protestantism contains the whole germ of Rationalism , which will assuredly work its way , and
in due time destroy you ; you have deserted from our ranks , but fear to throw yourselves into the arms of the enemy ; and , in your position of compromise , you cannot help perishing under the fire of both : meanwhile you , the preachers of Bible lore and purity , have never ceased to assail us with the grossest epithets and the foulest injustice ; and , now that we are labouring to organize our spiritual dominion , you , out of sheer jealousy , try to defeat our object by imputing to us treason ' against the temporal power of the English sovereign . " The English clergy reply with , public meetings and anathemas , with insult and vituperation ; preach that the doctrines of the Pope are accursed , and then unblushingly condemn the uncharitablenesa of Popery in denying salvation to all without its pale .
Let all good Liberals raise their voice in public and private against this senseless cry of "No Popery ;" and let disgrace evermore cover the head of that benighted Alderman who declared the other day that he thought a little imprisonment would be a very good thing for the Cardinal . Poor Cardinal ! "We can surely afford to pity superstition , without adopting the persecution for which we principally condemn it . But the Church of England , apparently , cannot afford this , and dares not refer the matter to that test of experience' — ' If this thing be of men , it will come to nought . " No ! the Bishops tremble , and mask their fears under the appearance of indignation . Sumner and Charles James feel a chill come over
them whilst they cast indignant glances at Wiseman and the Bishop of Southwark , and the chaste prudery of the Anglican Church shudders at the approach of the Scarlet Lady of Babylon . The continual din of sectarian clamour , the columns of newspapers metamorphosed into ' cheap sermon-books for young beginners , " the bookstalls crowded with longforgotten abominations of spite and ignorance , and the very walls and pavements inscribed with the theological opinions of the many-headed , are too much for mortal nerve 3 , and , in utter disgust , we exclaim , like
Juvenal" Semper ego auditor tan turn ? nunquam ne reponam 7 " Instead of exciting all the evil passions of their flocks let the ecclesiastical shepherds remember the judgment of Christ respecting the woman taken in adultery j and , if they would know the real qualifications for a holy life , let the unadorned words of Micah the prophet ring in their ears— " lie hath shewed thee , O man ! what is right ; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justice , and to love mercy , and to walk humbly with thy God r " A CAMnuiDQB Graduate .
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COOPERATIVE STORES . Oct . 17 , 1850 . Dear , Sib , —It appearing to me that the remarks in last week ' s Leader would lead your readers to believe that the Gray's-inn-road Cooperative Store was the only store established by Mr . Owen ' s party some years back , and that it failed for want of support ; such not being the fact , and having been intimately connected with the several stores then in existence , I trouble you with this in order to explain t ; he matter .
There were stores established in Grcville-street , Hat ton-garden ; Poland-street , Oxford-street ; Gray ' sinn-road , Red Lion-square ; Charlotte-street , Fitzroysquarc , and several other places in town and country . I will commence with Gray ' s-inn-road Store , as you allude to it only , although it was started some years after the other London stores . It was commenced in connection with a Labour Exchange , the object being to supply provisions , &c , in supply for Labour Notes . It is probable this store would have failed fur want of capital ; but the real cause of the
failure was a dispute with the landlord , who ousted Mr . Owen ' s party out of the premises , under the impression that he could carry it on with greater advantage to himself without them . The store I was most closely connected with was the "First WesternUnion , " established in 1829 , by the late Henry Hethcrington and a few others . Wo commenced operations by subscribing the money for purchasing candles , and met at a public-house to remil them , After a time we took t wo rooms in St . Ann ' scourt , Wardour-street ; then a shop in Great Windmill-street . Hayraarket , and afterwards a house
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• Daniel O'Connell . M . F .
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Nov . 23 , 1850 . ] H £ f ) e &eairet % 831
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[ In this department , as all opinions , however bxtbemb , aiie allowed an expression , the editor necessarily holds himself responsible for nonb . l
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 23, 1850, page 831, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1860/page/15/
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