6 4 



ROMANISM. 



human nature. But the sincere Ro- 

 manists stake everything upon their 

 submission to their Church ; so that, 

 to disturb them in their belief is 

 like rending their heart-strings, to 

 say nothing of the incapacity of 

 many, if not most, of them to ac- 

 quire a new religion. Even 

 Samuel Johnson used to say that 

 many an Englishman would be- 

 come a religious man, if he only 

 knew how to go about it. Sincere 

 Romanists, however, are seldom 

 such by reflection and knowledge, 

 like Protestants ; but by having been 

 the subjects of the ghostly influences 

 of the priest and Church before 

 their earliest recollections, and 

 which they have hardly ever been 

 without. 



As regards the priests, many of 

 them are doubtless sincere, particu- 

 larly the less intellectual or more 

 ignorant ones, however questionable 

 they may privately consider some of 

 the doctrines and practices of their 

 Church, or how they originated, or 

 some of their own actions in life, or 

 the means they resort to to support 

 the interest and dignity of the 

 Church, and everything connected 

 with it. The whole matter concerns 

 the questions, what we are, where we 

 come from, and whither we go, 

 about which no one personally 

 knows anything, but must naturally 

 look somewhere outside of himself 

 for information. Everything Ro- 

 manists have, they have inherited, 

 and been most rigorously brought 

 up to. It is a possession received 

 from a high antiquity, to be believed 

 in, maintained, and transmitted un- 

 impaired to the end of time. It 

 must be upheld against every oppo- 

 nent, as everything that is pure and 

 holy, angelic and august, surrounded 

 with its halo of hoary antiquity, and 

 the grandeur of mighty Rome ; and 

 everything derogatory to it must be 

 refuted, denied, or got rid of in some 

 way. All this having been bandied 

 about and dinned into the ears of 

 priests from generation to genera- 



tion every one receiving what was 

 asserted, or none disputing it, and 

 all outside more or less believing 

 and practising it must necessarily 

 have become the belief to a greater 

 or less extent among the priests ; at 

 least that, as a matter of fact, wheth- 

 er always completely believed in or 

 not, it was the religion that all should 

 ob*ey and venerate. Many of them, 

 however, from the Pope downwards, 

 have been actual, if not professed, 

 infidels and atheists, looking upon 

 everything they taught and defended, 

 as to them, so many fortunate and 

 profitable fables. It is a great stretch 

 on the charity and credence of those 

 outside of their fold to believe that 

 many of them can be altogether sin- 

 cere in what they profess and teach.* 

 Romanists, before they began the 



* Many things will occur to the reader 

 under this head. For example, a convert 

 leaves a large amount by will for masses 

 for his soul, and a high dignitary calls 

 upon the widow for a further large sum, 

 giving as his reason that the legacy had 

 got him only so far out of purgatory. This 

 happened to my own knowledge in a 

 Protestant community, but I pass over 

 the particulars for an obvious reason. 

 Priests can go a great length in a matter 

 like this, or in anything tyrannical, or even 

 odious ; for the devotees will turn to their 

 Church, however hardly used, as the)* 

 cannot change their religion as they do 

 their garments. And no one knows that 

 like the priests. 



In communities entirely Romanist, the 

 poorest and most ignorant devotees are 

 frequently treated, in many respects, little 

 better than dogs; indeed, as many, on 

 getting possession of dogs, treat them 

 roughly to test their dog-like quality of 

 submission, so do priests sometimes ap- 

 pear to test, in a somewhat similar way, 

 the obedience of their people. The genius 

 of their religion makes it a moral necessi- 

 ty to exact absolute submission to them 

 as representing it. When a contractor 

 engages labourers on an extensive scale, 

 and especially when at a distance from 

 powerful local authority, he will some- 

 times "keep a priest;" and frequently 

 will "his reverence" be seen coming 

 " tearing " down the road, with a whip in 

 hand. And that man would be " torn from 

 limb to limb " who would dare to lay his 

 hand upon him, or treat him disrespect- 

 fully. 



