Outlook of freedom : or, The Roman Catholic element in American history

Front matter

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Preface

The Outlook of Freedom is gained, by following in the footsteps of those who have battled for the living God on the Western Continent. Though Romanism had the start by nearly two centuries — though the standards of her faith were planted by Christopher Columbus on the island of San Salvador, and from thence carried westward to the Pacific, southward beyond the Gulf of Mexico — beyond the isthmus to the dreary wastes of Patagonia, northward to the Canadas and round the chain of lakes to the sources of the Mississippi; yet we shall see how events, guided by a Divinity that never errs, were so shaped and controlled that within a century, Romanism met with an overthrow on the hights of Quebec, in the heart of Europe, and in far distant India.

We shall see how this foe of freedom, of truth and of humanity then became the secret ally of a foreign despotism. We shall note her conquests, chronicle her defeats, and reveal the distorted features of an enemy full of subtlety, cunning and deception.

The field is new — others have written at length regarding American history ; but this is the first attempt made to trace the elements of Romanism and Protestantism as they have met face to face to try swords on a new field. We shall see that the stream of Roman superstitions, born at the foot of frozen glaciers in the caves of Pagan antiquity, however furiously it may roll on, and however turbulently it may strive to be acknowledged as the Gospel — has met with a signal defeat and an insurmountable barrier, in the freedom which the truth gives ; and in the swelling floods of that other stream which takes its rise at the throne of God. and flowson an undisturbed and pure river of life.

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IV PREFACE.

The work is now committed to other hands. We can promise them much of pleasure and of profit, providing they, like the writer have felt sad forebodings when their eye has wandered over the land, viewing the evidences of power, of bitter enmity to freedom — of harsh denunciation, w r hich characterizes the progress of Eomanism in our midst ; for amid it all, the reader can not fail to detect the hand that rules the storm, pointing the eye forward to the time when the light of the Gospel, the influence of free institutions and the onward march of science, will roll back and dispel the murky clouds of superstition ; and when the papal throng, fleeing from the despotisms of Europe shall emerge into the liberty which results from free thought, free speech and free labor bequeathed to us by the founders of the Eepublic.

We will not detain the reader with a record of the pleasures or sacrifices, of the toils, disappointments and hopes incident to an undertaking like the present. If the enterprise is successful it may stimulate other writers to exertion, if a failure, we shall show them how we have learned to endure defeat.

The heart of the author has been encouraged by the flattering evidences of regard he has received from friends. He bespeaks for this book which is the product of years of patient investigation, the candid and impartial examination of a generous public. — Deal plainly with its faults and commend its virtues; and may God make it the seedling from which shall spring another strong prop, which shall stay up the interests of a land whose past history is full of praise, and whose future is all aglow with the rising beams of hope. For America seems indeed like the citadel of a world's hope, built by an Almighty hand, from whose high tower there is an Outlook of Freedom, dear alike to the historian, the patriot and the Christian.

Sandusky, Ohio, July, 1856.

Contents

CHAPTER L

Introductory. — A glance at Europe prior to the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus 9

Chapter II

The West Indies. — Columbus discovers San Salvador — .Mistakes it for one of the Islands lying adjacent to India — The Natives — The cruelty of the Spaniards — The destruction of the Native population — Cruelty of Ovando — Persecution of Columbus — The condition of Cuba and Hayti 30

Chapter III

The Conquest of Mkxico and Peru. — Cortez — His Character — -Montezuma— The characteristics of the Mexicans — Scenes in the Conquest — The overthrow of the Mexican and commencement of the Spanish rule — Peru — Its conquest by Pizarro — The results — Influence of the Jesuits 59

VI CONTENTS.

Chapter IV

History of Jesuit Missions in North America. — The origin of the Jesuits — Loyola — His plan — Distinguished French Missionaries — When they came — Their success and defeat 90

Chapter V

The Colonial History of the United States. — Early settlement of Florida — Fernando de Soto — Discovery of the Mississippi — French Huguenots — Their persecution by the Spaniards — Gaspard de Coligny — His character — The slaughter of Protestants by Catholics in Florida — Massacre of St. Bartholomew 124

Chapter VI

The Overthrow of the Temporal Power of Popery. — The triumphs of Xavier in Japan and China — Luther's attack — The overthrow of French influence in India — The success of Frederic of Prussia, of De Wolfe on the hights of Quebec, planted the standards of Protestantism in the heart of Europe and America 139

/ CHAPTER VII.

History of Religious Freedom in the United States. — The lecture of Archbishop Hughes on "The- Catholic Chapter in the History of the United States," noticed — A comparison of the United States and South America — Religious Freedom — Its establishment claimed for the Catholics of Maryland — That claim disproved — Roger Williams of Rhode Island, the standard-bearer of Soul liberty — James II — His character — Roger Williams and Lord Calvert in contrast 166

CONTENTS. yii

Chapter VIII

Views of the Papists with regard to the United States. — The purposes and plans of the Papal Hierarchy — How they regard the United States — The Secret Societies of Europe plotting the overthrow of the Republic — A contrast between Catholic and Protestant Missionaries 189

CHAPTKR IX.

Foreign Relations of the United States. — Non-intervention an American doctrine proclaimed by Washington and Hamilton — By whom opposed — Naturalization Laws — Foreign Influence 208

Chapter X

The good and evil effects of American Institutions. — America the place of refuge for the oppressed — Equal Rights — How abused — Dangers arising therefrom — The origin of the American and Foreign Christian Union — Norton, Baird, Dowling, Tyng, and Hague — Their work 229

CHAPTER XL

The Catholic School Question — Its past and present condition. — Settlers of New England eager for Schools — Catholics object to use of Bible — Gov. Seward, D'Arey McGee, and Meagher on School Question — Reports of State Committees — Nunneries C 242

Chapter XII

The Church Property Bill. — Its history — The bill of Senator James 0. Putnam, of New York— The charges preferred by Hon. Erastus Brooks against Archbishop Hughes 270 viii CONTENTS.

Chapter XIII

The Religious Freedom of Europe a desideratum to Americans. — The overthrow of Religious Liberty in the Old World — Its influence upon America — Do Catholics fight as freemen ? — Archbishop Hughes — His history and pretensions — Metropolitan Hall meeting, in 1853, in behalf of Religious Freedom. 299

Chapter XIV

Appeals op European Republicans and Despots to our sympathies. — Louis Kossuth — His reception by the American people — The doctrine of Non-intervention maintained by Millard Fillmore and defended by Henry Clay — The influence of Kossuth upon the German population in the United States — Gavazzi and Bedini — Their influence 326

Chapter XV

The Outlook of Freedom. — The American movement — Its success, and its overthrow — Opposition to Despotism was the secret of its power — Its alliance with Despotism the source of its weakness 345

Chapter XVI

A Glance at Europe in 1848 and 1849. — Pio Nono— Joseph Mazzini — The hopes built upon Italian Freedom — The overthrow of the Republic by the French— Persecution of Bible readers. 357

Chapter XVII

The Influence and Prosperity of Protestantism and Popery compared.— The Truth gives Freedom—The church of Rome is enslaved— Freedom — What it is doing for the nations— The past and present condition of the ruling nations— Estimates of the numbers and power of the churches— Protestantism occupies the center of Europe and America— The triumphs of Truth— The condition of Catholicism throughout the world 368

THE

ROMAN CATHOLIC ELEMENT

IN

AMERICAN HISTORY.

Chapter I

A Glance at Europe prior to the Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.

The Eoman Catholic element can be traced through all the meanderings of the world's history during a period of fifteen hundred years. The tree was planted in Pagan soil long before the rising beams of modern civilization illumined the path of empire; Columbus, though he laid at his monarch's feet the record of a discovery which startled Europe from its long repose, did little more than plant on the shores of a forestworld seed gathered in ancestral climes, which, springing up, has brought forth a hundred fold.

This element, as it runs through and tinges the history of America, is but a continuation of the history of Roman Catholicism, and whoever watches the stream issue from its native channel in the Old World, and beholds it creating for itself a channel in the New, finds that it remains unchanged in appearance or destiny, and that it is easily recognized and followed.

Others have fully exposed the absurdities of the theological tenets of the Church of Rome. She has been shown to rest her hope of advancement and success not upon faith in Christ, but upon a system of works which blind and befog the ignorant, and which enshrouded the sky of her despairing votaries with the murky vapors of superstition. We shall gather together the fruits borne by the trees which make up this wilderness of error, and strive to point the eye of a generous people toward a land of gospel light and liberty, where the green fields of truth, veined by crystal streams, invite the worn and weary to an abundant rest.

Romanism is not a system of religious belief. When her founders forsook the path marked out by the New Testament and entered the arena of conflict, determined to wrest the trident from Pagan Rome, they abandoned every principle dear to humble followers of the Nazarene, and became a political power, whose onward course was marked by blight and ruin. This power beggared and then enslaved Europe. It covered the fairest portion of this green earth with the pall of night, and hung temples used to songs of praise and words of prayer with the drapery of gloom.

When Columbus reared the standards of the cross on the island of San Salvador, Europe was groaning under this accumulated weight of wrong. The reaction commenced so soon as an avenue was opened to thought, and while the Jesuits were penetrating the wilderness, were communicating with rude natives and making strenuous endeavors to instruct them in the forms and rituals of worship, reform was busy in Europe. It arose as a giant refreshed with wine, from the couch of

IN AMERICAN HISTORY. ll

luxurious ease, and with rapid stride surmounted the obstacles lying in its path. History shows that Romanism had unlimited sway in America, and acted out herself until the triumphs gained by Protestantism made it dangerous, when because of defeat she was forced for a time to wear the mask.

The historian then has to deal with a principle which has withstood the fall and crash of empires and the revolution of ages. He has to deal with a fixed fact, which made its appearance upon our continent nearly four centuries ago ; which began, a spectral cloud dotting the blue skies of the tropics, and now hangs like a frowning tempest, dark, ominous and portentous ; a fact that is a sojourner with us — that plants upon the most costly edifices of our land the cross, around which gathers, to a great extent, the poor, the ignorant and superstitious ; that is now, though boasting of its love of religious and political liberty, evidencing, by its hostility to the Bible, to truth, to education, to free speech and independence of thought, that freedom, both religious and political, is the object of its hate and persecution, here and throughout the world.

It is a fact worthy of notice, that the discovery of truth and the discovery of a continent took place at or near the same time ; that while God was leading the thought of Europe to make discoveries in science, in geography, and in navigation, in England Wickliffe and others were preaching the truth, and were thus preparing the way for a reformation in religion, and a revolution in mind, that was destined to change and disinthrall a shackled humanity. It was a remark of Jonathan Edwards, " that the wheels of Providence are not turned about by blind chance, but they are full of eyes round about, and are guided by the Spirit of God." The Bible is a faithful record of God's dealings with His chosen people, and His declared will published to the world. It points man toward a path that leads up from want and wretchedness to heaven, and gives him a guide so plain and unmistakable that a fool need not err therein. History is the record of God's dealings with the world. It enables us to see that there is a Power, back of all things, shaping and guiding and controlling individual and national destiny. " Facts, faithfully ascertained and placed in proper contiguity, become, of themselves, the links of a brightly burnished chain, connecting events with their causes, and marking the line along which the electric power of truth is conveyed from generation to generation. Historic truth may establish itself as a science, and the principles that govern human affairs, extending like a path of light from century to century, become the highest demonstration of the superintending Providence of God."

It is the privilege of all to gaze into past history, as a mirror, where the future may be seen. It is sublimely true that God moves in history. There will be many facts to demonstrate this, in our brief review of the period whence our history takes its rise. How else could we account for it, that Henry VII, of England, instead of Ferdinand, of Spain, lost the opportunity of fitting out Columbus in his voyage of discovery? Had his brother not been defeated in his plans before Columbus had won from the court of Spain the means to realize his splendid dream, the fleet would have sailed down the Thames ; Englishmen, instead of Spaniards, would have settled the West Indies, and South America, rather than New England, would have been the home of the Anglo-Saxon race. Why is it that no large society, of which the tongue is not Teutonic, has ever turned Protestant, and that wherever a language derived from that of ancient Rome is spoken, the religion of modern Rome to this day prevails? Italy, nor Spain, nor Germany — none of them, nor all of them together — were destined to exert the controlling influence upon the continent of America. It was England ; and we shall see how the Providence of God ordered it, that England, instead of Germany, should revolt from the church of Rome ; how Englishmen were restrained from coming here until the proper time ; how, by persecution, by trial, and by education, the bone and sinew of a nation were being prepared to lay the foundation of the temple of liberty in the distant regions of this forest continent, fast becoming the garden of the world ; "how a few resolute Puritans — who, in the cause of their religion, feared neither the rage of the ocean, nor the hardships of uncivilized life — neither the fangs of savage beasts, nor the tomahawks of more savage men — have built, amid the primeval forests, villages which are now great and opulent cities, but which have, through every change, retained some trace of the character derived from their founders. 7 ' How wisely it was ordained that Mexico, Peru and the Canadas should be colonized by the governments of Spain and France, while the centre of this western world has been peopled by stout-hearted and God-fearing men from every part of old England! We shall find that while, in the perfecting and carrying out of this great unfolding plan of

Providence, the Spaniards were daring the dangers of the deep, familiarizing themselves with the untrodden wilds of the ocean, or with the no less dangerous wilds of islands and forests — while they were timidly creeping along the shores of seas, penetrating the deep solitudes of continents — thinkers in Germany and in England were getting ready their bark to launch forth into the labyrinthine mazes of speculation, as with the Star of Bethlehem for their guide, the Bible for their compass, they cut loose from error, and pushed out upon the shoreless main of truth. Thus, while forests were being leveled, rivers ascended and mountains scaled in the New World, the accumulations of error, which had been gathering strength for centuries, were being removed, the area of scientific investigation was being mapped out, and streams of knowledge were permitted to flow forth, fertilizing, as they went, the continents and islands of the eastern hemisphere ; while the Spaniards were busy in gleaning sands of gold, the Anglo- Saxon race were no less eager in the pursuit of unseen treasures, which were to be garnered in the heavens.

Others have written the history of Boman Catholicism in Europe. They have led us to her cradle, where the infant slumbered in comparative security, rocked by superstition, which assumed the garb of truth. They have presented her again in the form of a mother, now doating and fond, now cruel and tyrannical. They have kindly lifted the veil that concealed the movements of the serpent, as noiselessly it has crept within the sanctum of the order, until, with slimy folds, it has coiled around the victim, pillowed its head upon the beating heart, taking captive the church, and guiding and controlling its aspirations and hopes. Thus, while the Eden of history was invaded by the enemy of God and the destroyer of man, in the form of a serpent, which coiled around the tuft of the tree of knowledge, we find the Eden of the church taken captive by the same foe, clothed in the garments of avarice and superstition. In the first instance, the key to the wide realms of knowledge was proffered ; in the latter, the door was thrown open to wealth and splendor.

A century passes, and history presents her, grown strong and mighty, with her towering cathedrals, decked with the costly trappings and tinselry of show. Others have portrayed her power, chronicled her conquests, and celebrated her triumphs. Aided by this light, we see her now laying waste the fairest portions of Persia ; now desolating the land of the Moors, and erecting her monuments upon the Nile : now from the Holy Sepulchre comes a wild fanatic, wrapped in a gown and belted by a cord ; and he calls millions after him to rescue, from the hands of the infidel, the tomb of the Messiah. Multitudes bestrew the plain with their bleaching bones, before we listen to the shout of victory echoing and re-echoing along their native hills, as, laden with spoils and trophies, they return to enrich their homes.

The scene changes, and we find her proud monuments leveled ; her heroes and saints have been by Saracen arrows made to bite the dust. The sepulchre, won by toil and treasure, is lost. The sky-pointing summits of her hope are wrapped in gloom ; her shrines and altars are bespattered with gore ; her plate has been used for exchange, her vaulted cathedrals for stables, and the palaces and conventicles of her priests have been converted into homes for the populace and the soldiery.

Behold her again, striving to recover from loss. Though rent by internal dissensions, she is yet strong and mighty, with a dead past forgotten, with a hopeful future growing bright. Thus was she in the fifteenth century. Error crept forth unblushingly, and " basked his scaly circles in the sun." The passions of men were unbridled ; their hopes and fears were made to fill the coffers of the church, by procuring salvation in Christ, or release from hell, by the payment of gold. The tastes and appetites of the clergy were cared for by an indulgent mother — aye, they were nursed by a tropic growth.

Behold the clustering group of great minds, that found in this pregnant era of history a birth and education — incitements to enterprise, and a world for action. In 1435, Christopher Columbus was born; Martin Luther first saw the light of day in 1483 ; the heaven-born radiance of the Gospel, in 1516 ; Erasmus, a most illustrious character in the republic of literature and the cause of religion, was born in 1467 j, Tyndal, in 1477 ; Melancthon, in 1497 ; Ignatius Loyola, in 1491 ; Charles V, in 1500; John Calvin, in 1509, and Elizabeth, Queen of England, in 1533. This group forms a galaxy of talent such as the world had scarcely seen for ages. They all traveled in different paths, but each wound around a common eminence, leading all to distinction. The influences exerted and sent forth by them live yet ; they have encompassed the globe. It is a common remark, that circumstances make men;

that they are the creatures of time. " The time called them forth ; the time did everything, they nothing but what any one else might have done." "This," says Carlyle, " seems to me but melancholy work. The tim»> call forth ! Alas ! we have known the times call loudly enough for their great man, but not find him when they called ! He was not there ; Providence had not sent him ; the time, calling its loudest, had to go down to confusion and wreck, because he would not come when called; for, if we will think of it, no time need have gone to ruin, could it have found a man great enough, a man wise and good enough ; wisdom to discern truly what the time wanted — valor to lead it on the right road thither: these are the salvation of any time." The history of the world is the biography of great men. In all epochs of the world's history wi* shall find the great man to have been the indispensable saviour of his epoch — the lightning without which the fuel never would have burnt. " Men, like stars, appear on the horizon at the command of God." How glorious to be such a star, ever shining so truthfully in the great moral firmament of truth — stars of God's own making, not the patched-up work of genius or literature, or of effeminate society. Such were the reformers of this period ; they shine now in that resplendent constellation of which the Saviour is the sun ; and as, in the sun's eclipse, we behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so, in the absence of Him, who is the light of the New Jerusalem, we behold these glowing ever in reflected light, and like the moon throwing from her silver sheen the glory of her departed king back upon the world. 2

Let us go back to this critical and important era, and learn what deeds performed by these illustrious men have given their names a place in history, and made their age the starting point of reform. Erasmus translated the Greek Testament into easy Latin, and thus made it accessible to the reading world. Tyndal went still farther, and gave Englishmen the Bible in their own tongue. Thus was the truth scattered throughout Great Britain, despite the opposition of the Church of Borne. Erasmus " laid the egg afterward hatched by Luther." At the same time (1517) that Erasmus gave England the New Testament, Luther began his attack upon the church. At this time the great German reformer developed a principle which sprung a magazine that, exploding, rent asunder the rocky barriers of the mountains of ignorance and superstition, pouring as from a volcano's crater, the lurid lava of truth over empires and continents. Calvin, planting his feet upon the Word of God, pointed his long, lean finger toward the corruptions of the church, and stirred up the dregs of error that so long had slumbered side by side with the golden grains of truth. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesus, possessed a mind that enabled him to contest with Luther the honor of fashioning the American history and character. The institution created by him early wrapped itself about the history of our country, and aided mightily in casting the spiritual horoscope of our continent. Seven years before Plymouth Bock received the disembarkation from the Mayflower, and twenty-three years before Bhode Island had its first European settler, France and the Boman Catholic religion had established itself in Maine. Still sooner, Jesuits WON in Nova Scotia. In 1G 2 5, Jesuit lionaries were laboring on the banks of the St. Lawrence: from thtnct the J journeyed in different directions, stimulated by a common object, striving for a common iroal.

Charles V. consolidated an empire, conquered Ike Papacy, imprisoned the Pope — now making that trememlous engine subserve his pro nd anon becom-

Rig its moft humble and del rvant : now joining

friendly bands with Ibnrv VIII. of England, and anon

becoming his deadly fce in the cabinet and on the field; now, setting in operation I which ; >

the different nations of Eur other in i c

brotherhood, and again tin their v.

ler the torch of revolution, whi.-h driv< - II i v back to

his home, breaks the powfef of Francis, an<l make- the Pope — that WOUld-be V ;t — do Ins bidding, and

perform his most menial work. C MM the

center of European influence, raised the Spanish p to the culminating point in greatness, and. by co&qU

ettended the area of empire bo soch an extent thai the sun never ceased to shine npon bis dominions. Elisabeth made 1 England, during her reign, what Charles V. had

made Spain a few year> before H I conquered

the Armada: her armies and hef tr eos ui strength

and encouragement to William Prince of Orange in the

Netherlands, and Henry of Navarre in Prance. England became the asylum for the oppressed of every clime — the cradle where the Protestant faith was rocked in its second infancy, and the furnace whore, by persecution and martyrdom, the spirit of revolt was engendered and cultivated that crave to America its Puritan element, and drove from the breast of a punctilious mother that seedling of strength which, planted in a wilderness, finally wrested from the parent state the right of self-government, and secured for herself the charter of our liberties. Elizabeth, by passing the Uniformity Act — an act that brought force to bear on the conscience, and fetters upon the limbs — blindly but surely laid the foundation of republican institutions ; while Christopher Columbus bridged the ocean, and discovered the Atlantis of the ancient dreamers.

Prominent and distinctive features characterized each and all of the individuals above named. They were all honest. They had a singleness of purpose that is remarkable. There is, too, an individuality about them that enables the historian to paint upon the canvas of the past, life-likenesses of each. Separate, isolated and alone, each one stands forth the representative of some particular action, era or course of policy. All would call Luther first and foremost among the opposers of Popery ; Loyola is equally prominent in defending the Papacy. John Calvin, the impetuous reformer, seems, like our own Edwards, to have burnt his image upon his age with the exact proportions that a red-hot bolt would burn into a board its length, size and form. Every lineament of his countenance can be seen, and his words, even now seem to be echoing round the world.

The ao;e of Elizabeth is her age alone. It has its niche in the temple of fame. She still occupies her throne. There never can be a usurper. Tyndal, whose life was devoted to translation, can be seen fleeing with his manuscripts from town to town, from country to country, that he may write and print the English Bible.

Luther and Loyola are often referred to as the chief molders of American character ; but, by a wise provision of Providence, the glory of starting, perfecting, and carrying out any work, can never all be ascribed to any one individual. And indeed, at this time many names stand, in the arrangement 'which the development of time has made, before either Luther or Loyola.

About the year 1581, Robert Brown, a weak and insinuating man, unsettled and inconsistent in all his views, in compliance with a freak of fancy, by endeavoring to model the form of the church after the infant community that was founded by the apostles, despite after exertions and recantations, sprung the thought which afterward grew into the system first styled Puritan, afterward Independent, and now styled the Congregational element. Brown, not being able to withstand the fires of persecution, shortly after he was driven to the Netherlands, deserted his followers, returned to England, took orders in the Established Church, and led an idle and dissolute life.