PERILS. — ROMANISM. yi 



are told, the largest, finest, best equipped of its kind in 

 the United States. They blow no trumpets, are sparing 

 of statistics, but are at work night and day to break 

 down the institutions of the country, beginning with the 

 public schools. As surely as we live, so surely will the 

 conflict come, and it will be a hard one." ^ 



Lafayette, born a Romanist, and knowing well the 

 nature of Romanism and its . antipathy to liberty, said: 

 "If the liberties of the American people are ever de- 

 stroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Romish 

 clergy." - 



1 Quoted by Dr. E. P. Goodwin, in a sermon before the American Home 

 Missionary Society, :May 'J, 1880. 



2 From the title pa;?e of The Confessions of a French Cathohc Priest, 

 18.37. Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse, who wrote the introduction to the book, 

 says in it: " The declaration of Lafayette, which the aiitlior has placed as a 

 motto in the title page of this book, is a beautiful evidence of the sagacity 

 and vigilance of liberty's great friend. Lafayette, like a veteran mariner, 

 was ever watching the political horizon for the indications of danger to his 

 beloved America, and the danger to which his latest warnings pointed was 

 this very covert political attack, which is in full operation upon our poil at 

 this moment; an attack the more dangerous because it shields itself under 

 the mask of religion, and cries out ' persecution ' at every attempt to expose 

 its true, its political character."' These words are as applicable to-day as 

 they were when written a generation ago. 



Prof. Morse, in a foot-note contained in the introduction quoted above, 

 says: " It may not be amiss here to state that the declaration of Lafayette 

 in the motto in question was repeated by him to more than one American. 

 The very last interview which I had with Lafayette on the morning of my 

 departure from Paris, full of his usual concern for America, he made use of 

 the same warning, and in a letter which I i-eceived from him but a few days 

 after at Havre, he alludes to the whole subject with the hope expressed that 1 

 would make known th? real state of things in Europe to my countrymen; at 

 the same time charging it upon me as a sacred duty as an American, to ac- 

 quaint them with the fears which were entertained by the friends of repub- 

 lican liberty, in regard to our country. If I have labored with any success 

 to arouse the attention of my countrymen to the dangers foreseen by Lafay- 

 ette, I owe it in a great degree to having acted in conformity to his often re- 

 peated injunctions."' 



Letters might be given from gentlemen ([noting language of the same im- 

 port, but stronger, which Lafayette had used to them. It seems worth 

 while to quote from Prof. Morse at some length because the authenticity of 

 the above saying of Lafayette has been denied by Bishop Kain, of Wheeling, 

 W. Va., and by other Roman Catholics. 



