70 



PERILS.— ROMANISM. 



keeping of another for life, and on pain of eternal dam- 

 nation, how can he make unconditional pledges touching 

 anything? Or, having made them, how can they be of 

 any value, if he accepts such doctrine as the above? Is 

 his oath of allegiance to the government worthy of 

 respect? Ought we not to place the same estimate on it 

 that Cardinal Newman did when he said that no pledge 

 from Catholics was of any value to which Rome was not 

 a party ? ^ 



The two greatest living statesmen, Gladstone and Bis- 

 marck, hold that the allegiance dehianded by the Pope is 

 inconsistent with good citizenship. Says the former: 

 " — the Pope demands for himself the riglit to determine 

 the province of his own rights, and has so defined it in 

 formal documents as to warrant any and every invasion 

 of the civil sphere; and that this new version of the 

 principles of the Papal church inexorably binds its 

 members to the admission of these exorbitant claims, 

 without any refuge or reservation on behalf of their 

 duty to the Crown." "^ He also says: "That Rome re- 

 quires a convert who now joins her to forfeit his moral 

 and mental freedom, and to place his loyalty and civil 

 duty at the mercy of another." ^ 



The constitution of the United States guarantees Lib- 

 erty of Conscience. Nothing is dearer or more funda- 

 mental. The first amendment to the constitution says : 

 " Congress shall make no laiv respecting ayi establish- 

 ment of religion or. prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'''' 

 Pius IX. declared it to be an error that, " Every man is 

 free to embrace and profess the religion he shall believe 

 true, guided by the light of reason."^ And from this 

 dictum no good Roman Catholic can differ. The same 

 Pope in his encyclical of December 8, 1864, said : ' ' Con- 



1 Dr. John H. Newman's Reply to Mr. W. E. Gladstone, 187.5, p. 14. 



2 Vatican Decrees, Harper & Brothers, 187.5, p. 31. 



3 Ibid. Third Proposition. 



4 Syllabus of Errors. December 8, 18G4, Proposition No. 15. Allocution 

 Maxima quidem, June 9, 1802. 



