The ark of the people

Front matter

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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Preface To The Translation 7

PLATO PUNCHINELLO'S ADVICE TO HIS HEARERS 27

FIRST ENTERTAINMENT.

Why our nature is so perverse, and how it may be improved — What religion is, and how many kinds there are 29

SECOND ENTERTAINMENT.

Symbol of the faith and morals of Atheists and Pantheists — How we can cure them or dismiss them 38

THIRD ENTERTAINMENT.

Creed of the Deists — What we should become with their gospel of nature and animal papacy — Way of vanquishing them... 48

FOURTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Deistical pelf- worshippers judged by the pontiffs and magistrates of their choice — Why we are born more ignorant than animals — Duty of our first Father, Teacher, and Master 56

FIFTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Were our first parents foundlings? — Some of the patriarchs of deism— Education of Adam and Eve — Their destiny and ours 68

4 Contents.

SIXTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Necessity of trial and combat — Man's defeat — Dialogue with a free-thinker .' 80

SEVENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Of what God could have done, and of what He did — Futility and injustice of our complaints 91

EIGHTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Amenities of ancient paganism in matters of belief, morals and social institutions 101

NINTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Why the slaves were so patient— Servile Wars — Amenities of the pagan family — Imperial cruelty — To whom we owe the abolition of the worship of tigers 116

TENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Answer to an objection of the progressionists — Reflections on the work of the Propagation of the Faith— A glance at the social progress of the Chinese, Hindoos and Turks 130

ELEVENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Revolution operated by Christianity — What we should have to think of Europe if Jesus were not God — Silliness of the objections urged against the Christian faith 145

TWELFTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Necessity for the lesson of Calvary — Immensity of its results. - 157

THIRTEENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Why the world has not been converted by a sudden stroke of policy — Rapidity and universality of apostolic preaching — Reasons of the infidelity of so many nations 167

FOURTEENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Three successive forms of Christianity — Present form — Valuation of two methods of propagandism 179

Contents. 5

FIFTEENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Catholic method — Catholicism of Protestants — Reply to their objections — The aim of their principle — Necessity for an infallible power 193

SIXTEENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Remedy against fear of the abuse of infallibility — Necessity of infallibility for the liberty of all, particularly of the people. 203

SEVENTEENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

What the people owes to its modern friends, and what it owes to Jesus Christ — Comparison between Catholic institutions and revolutionary institutions — Who are the people's true friends 215

EIGHTEENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

What Christian civilization is — Why it has made so little progress — Authors and partisans of schism and heresy, and their manner of proceeding — How a nation can baffle it, or how it may become its plaything 232

NINETEENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Curious comparison between two species of monsters — Why so many of the reformers are still honored — Popularity of Anglicanism 245

TWENTIETH ENTERTAINMENT.

Character of the Papacy — Its establishment in Rome— Its connection with the empire become Christian — Reflections on the omnipotent State 262

TWENTY-FIRST ENTERTAINMENT.

Temporal dominion of the Popes — Its origin — Its necessity — Napoleon's sentiments — Answer to difficulties 276

TWENTY-SECOND ENTERTAINMENT.

Cause of the contests between the Holy See and the ancient governments — Pretended abuse of excommunication — End and consequence of religious spoliation — Value of the reproaches

addressed to the clergy 289

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6 Contents.

TWENTY-THIRD ENTERTAINMENT.

Reasons for the privileges of the ecclesiastical tribunals— Immunity of the holy place — Of the number of festivals — What the people gain by the abasement of the clergy 308

TWENTY-FOURTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Efforts of modern Europe to secularize everything — Who have undertaken this great work, and what they have gained by it 321

TWENTY-FIFTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Catholic Inquisition — Conduct towards the Church of all those who accuse her of intolerance — The .Church's constant rule against infidels 336

TWENTY-SIXTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Why the Inquisition was established — Character and struggles of the Middle Ages — Comparison of that epoch with ours — A word on the Spanish Inquisition — Roman Inquisition.... 353

TWENTY-SEVENTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Galileo's condemnation — Exploits of Protestant and infidel inquisitors — Reflection 375

TWENTY-EIGHTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Answer to the last objections against the Church and the priesthood 392

TWENTY-NINTH ENTERTAINMENT.

Poverty of the solutions proposed by man — Grandeur of the solution prepared here below and decreed on high 413

THIRTIETH ENTERTAINMENT.

Temporary consequences of the European solution — Eternal solution for the human race ■ 432

Preface To The Translation

'HE work entitled the "Ark of the People," is presented to the public with full confidence that it will be found instructive, edifying, and entertaining. It treats of subjects of the greatest interest in a religious, moral, and political point of view. With remarkable ability it scatters the darkness now brooding over the minds of the masses, and brings into clear light the principles which must be understood and practised, to insure the welfare of every age and nation. The author treats with great skill the conspiracy against the sovereignty of Heaven, probes its grossness and inveteracy, unravels its complicated ignorances, and exposes its malignity. The false pretences of modem thought, advanced science, and refined civilization, are exposed in all their deformity and deceit, so that we can perceive the convulsions now tormenting society to be really a retrograde tendency to the obscurantism

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of the dreariest epochs of ancient stupidity and depravity. An impartial examination of the operations in every department of physical and mental toil, except whatever appertained to materialistic industry, exhibits a displacement of all the elements requisite for the construction and maintenance of a social system, prosperous and happy, in harmony with religion and morality. In fact, Christianity is now substituted by Gentilism of the meanest type. The disquisitions of our author guide us to this conclusion, for we are excited to reflect on the revolutions, disturbances, and political corruption ; the heresy, infidelity, and atheism ; the colloquial blasphemy; the discarded devotion; the innovations of divorce, the magisterial and senatorial profligacy; the obscenity in literature, dramatic or general; the homicide or infanticide; the swindling, gambling, profusion, suicide and parricide, that, more or less, infect and disgrace the nations. Were we disposed to refine a little, we might add the tendency to exalt and extenuate genius, energy, audacity, success, irrespective of intrinsic worth, nay, often united to intense depravity; forgetful of the revealed and reasonable maxim, "To whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required, and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."

So in some recurrence to the heroic mythology

Preface to the Translation. 9

of ancient times, as well as in some advance to the antichristian idolatry of future, Mohammed, Harry the Eighth, Cromwell, Mazzini, Gasparoni, Dick Turpin, Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, Jack Shepherd, Bismarck, and similar demigods, have found, not only admirers of their abilities, but apologists of their crimes, of their imposture, their turpitude, their sacrilege, their avarice, plunder and murder. Sensual sagacity, vulpine cunning and animal energy are preferred to principle and brave self-denial. The end justifies the means, and success constitutes the test of virtue, capable of altering the nature of things and the eternal principles of right. The traitor is by victory metamorphosed into the hero, and becomes the greatest man of the age and the idol of posterity. The immorality or infidelity of the past is overlooked, so long as the vehicle of it be the music of the siren. The poetic parallel of ancient Rome towards the close of the republic, and under the sway of the empire, in point of constitutional degeneracy, might be illustrated by a continuous chain of medical testimony, for many years of apostasy and revolution, down to the universal conviction of contemporary physicians. For consider but a little and it will appear plain, that the withdrawal of the monastic and celebate contracts of poverty and chastity, coupled with the io Preface to the Translation.

abandonment of such Christian and scriptural preservatives as confession, fasting and abstinence, must have led to serious changes in the national conscience and constitution. Among other consequences, as we may observe incidentally, came the inconveniences of repletion ; these our forefathers endeavored to remedy by bleeding and purging, as before they had fasted in spring and autumn, and now their descendants can neither endure bleeding, purging, nor fasting, hence so many new and sudden diseases of heart, brain, spine, etc., and so much paralysis and apoplexy, and similar results of the Deformation by Satan, Luther, Calvin and Co.

We will not dwell on the increase of insanity, which, among other considerations, may not unreasonably be inferred from the general impairment of constitution ; the prevalence of nervous disorders to an extent, if not also of a kind, not known in former ages ; the exciting and depressing influence of many trades and occupations, subservient to a highly artificial state of pseudo-civilization ; the premature, unsanctioned and ill-regulated sensuality; the free use of alcoholic stimulants, especially whisky; the sedentary and self-indulgent habits of society; the mutability of events, the precipitance of life, the very conflicts of liberty itself, the misery of competition, the multitude of busi-

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ness, the inability to procure employment or subsistence, the disregard of prudence and the absence of reflection : above all, the self-reliance and contempt of the principle of authority in matters of faith and duty, with the consequent neglect of religious and moral discipline, both aggravated by the substitution of a false and frivolous philosophy, and the superficial and sensational character of general literature. We cannot avoid judging the present age to be not merely imperfect, but inferior in some grave respects of truth and wisdom, to many of its predecessors. The philosophy of the present age is often false, and liberty tends to licentiousness. Who, in former times, would have so much as dreamt of divorce, and thus paved the way to the acceptance of polygamy, the less evil, and for which more scripture may be pleaded, however fallaciously in either instance, than for the dissolution of God's own foundation of society? Who have attempted such modes of insevere, undisciplined, frivolous, and indiscriminate education, imparting unserviceable knowledge, disregarding solid facts, charging the memory, not developing the reason and exercising the understanding, so as to constitute habits of judgment and reflection, application and attention, and tending to make the various classes of society dissatisfied with their position, conceited of themselves,

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and contemptuous of their betters? More serious still, the present age, with all its accumulation of experience, circulation of knowledge, freedom of inquiry, and opportunity of comparing and adjudicating opinion, is so wise as not even to be of one mind in religion, the first of all things. On the contrary, it is promised by a faction of blasphemous idiots, that religious unity shall be approximated by a pseudo-evangelical alliance who will convene to " agree to differ/' a plan worthy of the circus clown. To conclude the poetic parallel which we have expanded, perhaps exceeded, the present state of society, religiously, morally, and politically, corresponds t6 that of a man who is cognizant of his disease by its symptoms rather than its cause, and who therefore strives to palliate, not to cure it; resorting to empirical, superficial and temporary remedies, in contradiction to rational, radical and comprehensive treatment. It is a maxim alike medical, legal, moral and metaphysical, that " sublata causa tollitur effectus ;" remove the cause and the effect will cease. The cure, certainly like the disease, must be chronic, especially in a body so extensively affected, and compounded of so many heterogeneous parts; but the great difficulty is to incline the patient to adopt it, for which end it is necessary that he should first be informed.