Earlier text: The Coming Kingdom of GloryAMERICANS have been taught to believe that there are certain cardinal truths upon which our government rests, which are essential to the maintenance of our freedom. Our forefathers having suffered bitter and untold persecutions under State religious establishments, wisely separated the State from the church, and established each on an independent basis. There was but one opinion in the colonies at the time of the adoption of the constitution of the United States upon this subject, however much of dissent may have existed as to others. All patriots approved it, all indorsed it, all applauded it. The great father of American statesmen, Thomas Jefferson, considered “Freedom of religion among the essential principles of our government,” and “that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general Government.” And the great author of the Constitution, James Madison, declared that “A resource that cannot fail to aid me in the fulfillment of my duty is the sentiment and intention to avoid the slightest interference with the rights of conscience or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction.” Patriots and sages viewed with jealous eye their dear-bought liberty, and every heart beat responsive to the patriotic sentiments of those great pillars of the government. At that time the Romish church had about thirty priests in this country. As, year by year, that church grew in strength in our Union, both from immigration and from natural causes, a voice came rolling across the Atlantic from a papal organization, at Lyons, for the propagation of the faith, “claiming that France and Spain took possession of this country for the church,” and saying: “At a late hour, heresy made her appearance, and led to the coasts of North America the most violent of her disciples—the restless Puritans. Some other sects cast their scum on the same shores, and Protestantism gained sovereignty in the thirteen colonies which were destined to become the United States. Yet the Catholic Church could never abandon the invaded territory.” This, then, is the “invaded territory” of the church. Reader, know ye that invaders have no natural rights, and are subject to be ejected as soon as sufficient force can be organized to accomplish it? In July, 1852, speaking of the Gallican Declaration of 1672, Brownson’s Review, p. 290, says: “The original vice of the four articles was in the separation of the two powers, and placing the State and the church, each in its own order, on the same footing, each holding immediately from God, independently of the other. The temporal power exists for the spiritual, not for itself, and is therefore subordinate to the spiritual, and consequently subject to the spiritual sovereign, in obedience to whose authority the temporal sovereign must govern. In the second place, the separation of the two orders is not and cannot be a fact. The two orders are distinguishable, but the temporal is never without the spiritual any more than the creature is without a creator.” This sentiment went forth, indorsed by twenty-five American Archbishops and Bishops. A few years glided swiftly away, and an echo from Rome, gathering force as it crossed the Atlantic, rolled up our valleys and over our hills and mountains, as “The Voice of Infallibility,” proclaimed in the appendix to the encyclical letter bearing date Dec. 8, 1864, as follows: “Error Fifty-fifth.” That “the church must be separated from the State, and the State from the church.” Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and those other illustrious patriots and statesmen, were “invaders,” and hence had no right to say “the rights of conscience and the functions of religion were wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction,” in the land won by their valor and wisdom. “The church could never abandon the invaded territory,” therefore the twenty-five Archbishops and Bishops, the Pope, the Priests, Brownson, and the entire Catholic press, declare those great men were wrong, that our cherished ideas and our cardinal principles of government are “ERRORS.” Reader, who do you suppose had the interest of America more at heart, the organization which says those patriots who transmitted to us our glorious liberties were “invaders of the territory of the church” or the fathers of the Republic, themselves? those who are sworn “to defend,” “to advance,” the interest of the pope? or those who suffered and bled, and died, to secure to us the blessings of freedom? Many Catholics assert that the church does not hold such a doctrine in the United States. We ask any person of this belief to designate an Archbishop, Bishop, Priest, or layman, occupying any position in the church, or on the press thereof, who has denied it! Will you name one among them who ever denounced the horribly atrocious way in which the “faithful children” repelled, in 1564, the Protestant “invasion” of “the territory of the church,” in Florida? That terrible chapter teaches us the punishment to be meted out to other “invaders of the territory the church could never abandon.” Again, only a few days since, “father” Thos. Farrell, of New York, was removed from the pastorship of St. Joseph’s church by Archbishop McCloskey, because he addressed a letter to the “Meeting of Friends of Italy,” expressing satisfaction at the separation of the church and state in Italy. This, the Western Watchman says, made him “a hater of the Holy See,” and “an abettor of sacrilege.” There is little evidence in such language, and in the action mentioned, of a disposition to renounce the doctrine in the United States. The Romish church has long been working most earnestly to reconquer “the invaded territory.” To accomplish that, it has, in some sections of the Union, sought to drive the Protestant Bible from the family circle by burning it; in others, it wars against our public schools and unites with infidels and Jews, although anathematizing them with every breath, to banish the Bible therefrom, because the Western Watchman says: “They have no right to be at all. We said, [it repeats] Materialize, unchristianize, infidelize, those schools, for it is only by so doing we can wrench our rights from the dishonest majority who now legislate for us.” Priests are told to “speak from their altars” and exhort their flocks to vote for no man who will not comply with their demands. Raise up children in their schools which they call “Christian,” and wish to establish on the ruins of the public schools, with the Romish catechism instead of the Protestant Bible, in their hands, and a generation will suffice to give them an immense numerical majority, when religious freedom in this country will be at an end, and, as Archbishop’s Kenrick’s organ, the Western Watchman, said a few weeks ago, “The heaven-born institutions115 of Catholicity will be planted side by side with the institutions of the country.” The Duke of Richmond, formerly governor of the Canadas, said in a speech at Montreal, when speaking of the United States: “The church of Rome has a design upon that country. Popery will in time be the established religion, and aid in the destruction of that Republic.” About 1828 the St. Leopold foundation was established in Austria for the purpose of supporting “the greater activity of the Catholic missions in the United States.” Austria took this society under her royal protection, as a Cabinet office of the prince, before its organization in some lectures against Protestantism in support of Popery, took the ground that the United States was the “True nursery of all these [revolutionary] destructive principles. Thence the evil has overrun many other lands, either by natural contagion or by arbitrary communication.” The Pope published a bull promising full indulgence and remission of all their sins to those who contributed to this society. The English Romanists formed an emigration society for the same purpose. Both of the above societies directed their attention to the North-west. In a pamphlet written by a Roman Catholic, speaking of the Catholics, is written: “They gain more by immigration, more by natural increase in proportion to their numbers, more by intermarriages, adoption, and conversions, than Protestants. With their exclusive views of salvation, and peculiar tenets, as soon as they have a majority, this becomes a Catholic country with a Catholic government, with the Catholic religion established by law.” He calls attention to the West, especially to St. Louis, which “Has risen up, as it were, but yesterday, in the heart of this country, it now boasts of more than thirty thousand inhabitants, twelve thousand of which are German, Belgian, French, and Irish, Catholics, mainly attracted by the system of education afforded by the Belgian Jesuits.” It is this system of education the Western Watchman wishes to establish on the ruins of our common-school system. That paper last spring said, St. Louis is “The most Catholic city in the land, and it will be an everlasting disgrace to us, if we do not give the nation at large proof of our manly determination to overthrow a galling and outrageous injustice,” and insisted that they should carry religion into politics and elect none to the school board but those “pledged” to secure their demand, saying, “We mean to seize that board, and it will be our fault if we fail in the attempt.” How long will it be before they will feel strong enough to attempt to seize some other branch of the Government? A very large element of our population, about seven millions, is working unitedly by sustaining the Romish church, to bring about the union of the church and state. That our Protestant brethren may reflect upon the question, we call their attention to the condition of those countries in which the union is, and has been, in existence, from time immemorial. Behold Mexico and the Republics and governments of South America; civil wars, civil wars have desolated them, and the clergy have drawn the blood of life from their veins. They contain no stable governments, permit no freedom of thought or of worship, afford inadequate protection for life, and manifest but little virtue. Look at Spain, highly favored as to climate and soil as she is, until lately priest-ridden, “all the vitality has been ground out of her,” as one of her statesmen in the session of the cortes said, by “the church.” If this union is productive of such excellent results as are attributed to it, why has it not manifested itself there? Spain had some experience with the noble (?) Jesuits, and to show what the king thought of them we shall quote a page of history. The king discovered that they were “the power behind the throne,” more powerful than the throne itself in directing the people, therefore he issued a decree banishing them from all the Spanish dominions and forbidding them to return or hold any intercourse whatever with any subject of Spain, or any person residing within its territory. He had soldiers surround the colleges and take possession of the bells, so they could not be rung to create a tumult. The fathers were told to secure their breviaries, linen, money, and other trifles, and were then marched like so many criminals, to the seacoast, and shipped away. A month after their departure the king wrote to the Pope touching the matter. He said as it “Is the first duty of a sovereign to watch over the peace and preservation of his State, and provide for the good government and tranquillity of his subjects,” he had therefore, “been under the imperious necessity of resolving on the immediate expulsion of all the Jesuits who are established in his kingdom and dominions, and to send them to the States of the church, under the immediate, wise and holy direction of your most holy beatitude and most worthy father and master of the faithful.” Whereat on the 16th day of February, 1767, the pope wrote a letter of remonstrance to the king; we quote the address and the reference to the Jesuits from it: “To our dearest son in Jesus Christ,” “The body, the instruction, the spirit of the company of Jesus is absolutely innocent; and not only innocent, but it is pious, it is useful, it is holy; and all this considered with reference to its laws, to its maxims, or to its objects.” Yet when this holy “company of Jesus” arrived at Civita Vecchia, his “holiness,” the Pope, directed the Superior or General of their own order, “father Ricci,” to refuse them a landing, and they were deterred from landing by the guns of the fortress. Here we find the “dearest son of Jesus” and the “holy father” afraid of this “holy company of Jesus.” If they dreaded their machinations, what should not American Protestants fear, whose doctrines they are sworn to extirpate? We further find a Catholic State in such mortal dread of Catholic society that it is compelled to banish it. Is there, then, such magic in Catholicism that we must be blinded to its encroachments, to its objects and designs? that we must shut our eyes to its history? If the purpose and lives of that “company of Jesus” were so holy, why did a Catholic nation, ruled by “the dearest son of Jesus,” spew them out, and the Pope refuse them a landing? and, if the union of the church and state is so holy, and productive of so great good, why is it Spain, and Italy, and Austria have been destroying it? The most intensely Catholic countries are the most profoundly ignorant, indolent, and criminal. The States lately ruled by the Pope himself, in which are over 250 bishops, by their police statistics, establish this. These show one murder annually in every 1,000 inhabitants, and as to ignorance, out of 170,400 marriages in the year 1868, there were 90,350, in which neither the bride nor the groom could read or write. If the Romish church fosters education, how is it so much ignorance abounds in its dominions? If it prevents vice and crime, how is it with so many Bishops, Priests, Monks, and other holy (?) orders as exist in the late States of the church, they were overrun with brigands, and that so many murders are annually committed? If it prevents indolence, how is it the “holy city” is filled with beggars? Notwithstanding the fearful condition of society under the immediate rule and eye of the Pope, the Western Watchman and other Catholic papers say: “We have to plant the heaven-born institutions of Catholicity side by side with the institutions of the country. The battle as between the eternal and immutable principles of Catholicity and the pernicious maxims of human insolence, ambition and lust, must be fought here in this land and with this people.*” Are institutions which foster so much crime, and such profound ignorance “heaven-born,” or fit institutions to supplant those which are the natural offspring of our form of government? Protestants, you must work with the same zeal they manifest; perfect your Evangelical Unions, your Christian Associations, and whatever else will give concentrated action. Do not be destroyed in detail, but put forth a united effort to turn those now in the communion of Rome from the “Man of Sin,” and awake those among us to realize the danger of the time. “The church is of necessity intolerant,” and when the “Catholic religion shall have been established by law,” the “final penalties of the law will be inflicted upon the violaters thereof”—“the invaders of the territory of the Church.”—From the Sentinel, Edina, Knox Co., Mo. Cleansing the Heart.
By Angelia J. Edmunds
We will suppose that with the help of Jesus we have succeeded in clearing away the rubbish from the door of our hearts, so that the door can be thrown open. With our dim vision we can see the furniture within; but all is confusion; for there has been an occupant there averse to the pure and elevating principles of Heaven. We step in and try to arrange it; but oh! what a dark and gloomy place it is. We never can work with the furniture Satan uses. Everything goes wrong so long as we try to do so. We fall on our knees and plead before God for an understanding of his holy word that we may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. We pray that light may arise and shine upon us; for there is a great work for us to do, and we never can accomplish it while we grope our way in darkness. God answers our prayer. Light increases. We see the large things in the room, and commence arranging and making these right. We are blessed, and have the assurance that so far our ways are pleasing to God. The sun rises higher. We look about us, and what do we see now that we did not notice before? The floor of our dwelling is literally strewed with filth and dirt. If we had seen all this when we first commenced, we should probably have shrunk from the task in despair; but we know in our past experience, that when we asked for help, feeling our need, help was granted; therefore we will not turn back now. It is very evident to our minds, as the light shines more and more upon us, that there must be a thorough cleansing process gone through with. How necessary that we commence right! We cannot do all this work alone, and it must not be left half accomplished; for he whom we most desire to have dwell with us, is the one who cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. We remember reading that “the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin;” also in Mal. 3, “He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap; and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” This is the one we engage to help us. We ask him, and because of our importunity he turns us not away. Now we commence in good earnest. The work goes on. There is joy in our hearts. Surely, we are making progress. But stop, here is a heavy cross to be lifted before we can finish our cleansing. It seems so much like a mountain to us in our weakness, that for a little, we forget the help Jesus sends us. A still small voice whispers, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Hope and courage spring up again. We wonder how we could ever forget that precious promise. We bow humbly, and ask to be forgiven our distrust. We ask that he will still aid us; and again with determination we faithfully labor on. With the help of the angel, the cross is lifted, the obstacle in the way of progress removed; but the experience has been a good lesson. Jesus suffered us to feel our weakness that we might more fully trust in him; for before us there is yet a more trying time. Rather than we should fail in this work of cleansing our hearts, Jesus will send not only one, but two mighty angels to help us; for he knows our weakness. He knows the power of the enemy with whom we have to contend. The cleansing has been going on until we begin to feel a little better satisfied with our condition. But now it is midday. The bright rays of the sun penetrate every nook and corner, and we begin to see the dust, our little sins. Oh! how we mourn over these little sins, we have so many years been trying to purge from our hearts. But we still keep sweeping, brushing, and dusting; for do you not see that this is necessary? May the mid-day sun ever shine upon us. May we see everything that is impure in our hearts, and remove it. Then will the Holy Spirit dwell there. Then will Jesus come in and sup with us, and we with him. While this cleansing process has been going on, there has been many a battle fought with the enemy; for he has tried to gain an entrance. Sometimes he transforms himself into an angel of light to deceive us; but thanks be to God; for he giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we know how essential it is to have his presence and help continually. We must not trust in our own strength one moment; for the occupant that was formerly dwelling in our hearts may again return; and if he finds us for a moment alone with our house swept and garnished, not gathering with Jesus, but trusting in our own armor, he will go and take to himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and will enter in and dwell in our hearts, and our last state will be worse than the first. Luke 11: 21–26. Do you think that such a thorough house-cleaning could go on without our neighbors and friends knowing it? I think not. When they see the work going on in our hearts they will be anxious to see their own hearts right, if they are honest with themselves and their God. Our help has been so excellent, never failing us in time of need, and we so thankful to Him, ever speaking in his praise, that they will be led to apply to the same source for help. To every one engaged in this great and good work I would say, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Prov. 4:23. ANGELIA J. EDMUNDS. Johnstown, Mich. DID you ever study the cheapness of some pleasure? asks some writer. Do you know how little it takes to make a multitude happy? Such trifles as a penny, a word, or a smile, do the work. There are two or three boys passing along—give them each a chestnut, and how smiling they look! they will not be cross for some time. A poor widow lives in the neighborhood, who is the mother of half a dozen children. Send them half a peck of sweet apples, and they will be happy. A child has lost his arrow—the world to him—and he mourns sadly; help him to find it, or make him another, and how quickly will the sunshine play over his sober face. A boy has as much as he can do to pile up a load of wood; assist him a few moments, or speak a pleasant word to him, and he forgets his toil, and works away without minding it. Your apprentice has broken a mug, or cut the vest too large, or slightly injured a piece of work. Say, “You scoundrel,” and he feels miserable; but remark, “I am sorry,” and he will try to do better. You employ a man; pay him cheerfully, and speak a pleasant word to him, and he leaves your house with a contented heart, to light up his own hearth with smiles and gladness. As you pass along the street, you meet a familiar face; say “Good morning,” as though you felt happy, and it will work admirably in the heart of your neighbor. Pleasure is cheap. Who will not bestow it liberally? If there are smiles, sunshine, and flowers all about us, let us not grasp them with a miser’s fist, and lock them up in our hearts. No, rather let us take them and scatter them about us, in the cot of the widow, among the groups of children in the crowded mart, where men of business congregate, in our families, and everywhere. We can make the wretched happy, the discontented cheerful, the afflicted resigned, at an exceedingly cheap rate. Who will refuse to do it? Our Happiness Depends on Our Conduct
OUR happiness and misery are trusted to our conduct, and made to depend upon it. OUR DAYS ARE FAR SPENT.
By Mary E. Guilford
Our days are far spent; the night is at hand,
When mercy, sweet mercy, no longer will plead.
The last note of warning now sounds through the land,
But alas! oh, alas! how few will give heed.
They scorn God's commandments, nor heed his reproof;
Christ's offers of mercy they spurn with contempt.
All listless and careless, they turn from the truth;
Their hearts are on fashion and folly intent. Our days are far spent; the night is at hand;
That night when no man can his labor perform.
Soon a terrible famine will spread o'er the land,
A famine more fearful than tempest or storm.
Their vats may o'erflow with the choicest of wine;
Their garners be filled with the best earth affords;
Yet famishing still, they'll in anguish repine,
They'll hunger and thirst for the word of the Lord. Our days are far spent; the night is at hand,
Which will close like a pall on a perishing world;
And a wail of wild anguish shall sweep o'er the land,
As the death-dealing weapons upon it are hurled.
Oh! how fearful the doom, how sad will it be,
Of those who now scorn and deridingly mock:
Who can fathom their cry of dread agony?
“Fall on us, ye mountains! O, hide us, ye rocks”? Our days are far spent; the night is at hand;
O lukewarm professor, awake out of sleep;
O sinners, how long will ye carelessly stand?
Though justice now slumbers, ere long it will sweep
With bolts of destruction o'er land and o'er sea,
Till earth shall be soaked with the blood of the slain.
O wake thee! arouse thee! to Jesus now flee,
Haste, haste, for the moments are few that remain. A Living Church.
By Francis Gould
The church of God is a living church. God does not recognize any church on earth but a living church. He will not accept any person who professes to be a member of his church but living members, and those who live lives of consecration, devotion, and faith. God has manifested great love for us. In return, we should love him supremely. We are to love God because he first loved us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Eph. 5:25-27. But we ask, What constitutes the living church, or such a one as God will accept? For we read, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” Matt. 7:21. Christ also explains the process by a figure. He says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” John 15:1, 2. For instance, the farmer goes forth into his nursery or orchard and examines his fruit trees. He finds some dead branches, and some which show but little signs of life. He takes his pruning-knife and separates them from the living tree and from among the living branches, and casts them forth as good for nothing. It becomes very necessary and important that he do this, from the fact that they are an encumbrance to the tree, and retard the growth of the living branches, and are detrimental to them. The remaining branches are healthy, full of life, and the sap flows freely through all, and they bear much fruit. In a similar manner, God deals with his professed people. The wise man in referring to the church and God’s care for it, says, “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded.” Solomon’s Song 6:10, 11. The great examination is now taking place. Our state and standing before God are being investigated. Soon the decree will go forth: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still.” It is of the utmost importance that we who profess to be connected with the body of Christ should awake to righteousness, and to spiritual life, and to activity, ere the message closes, and we take up the sad lamentation, The summer is past, the harvest ended, and my soul is not saved. The dead branches will be severed from the living ones. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Matt. 13:41-43. May the Lord fit us to be numbered among the shining ones in glory. FRANCIS GOULD. Christian Lives as Guides to Eternal Safety
Genuine Christians, by their holy lives and holy conversations, are the means of directing others, not only how to escape all of the dangers to which they are exposed on the rough and tempestuous ocean of human life, but also of leading them into the haven of eternal safety and rest. Seeking to Be Good Rather Than Seem
SAINTS seek more to be good than to seem to be so. The Troubled World.
By Editor
The simile under which the Bible sets forth the condition of the wicked, comparing them to “the troubled sea, when it cannot rest,” fitly describes the unsettled, agitated condition of the world at the present hour. Not more is physical nature disturbed by the earthquake upheavals now so common, by the pestilence spreading abroad its silent and sullen death, and by storms and tornadoes carrying ruin and devastation in their path, than are the hearts of men by the fears and forebodings which agitate them, and the nations by the revolutions already existing, or threatening each moment to burst into open action. Where is there peace, or any sign of peace? Where is there not war, or immediate tokens of war? The agitation of the public mind has been divided the past week between the unexpected and terrible revolution in Paris, and the Ku Klux outrages in our own southern States. With a blindness and fury scarcely less than that of the revolution of 1793–8, the French have again inaugurated a reign of terror in Paris. How this movement strikes the world at large, we may set forth by quoting a word from two of the leading journals of this country. The N. Y. Tribune says: “The French situation may be painted in one nervous line of Dr. Holmes’: ‘The mob of Paris wrings the neck of France.’ The conduct of the people of the great metropolis during the last two days will go far to destroy any lingering sympathy for them which might have survived the follies and disasters of siege and surrender.” The N. Y. Independent says: “We are oppressed with terrible news from Paris. As we write, we know little of the particulars; for the revolutionists have seized the telegraph offices. We are simply informed that the Red Republicans hold armed possession of the city, have overpowered or persuaded the regular troops, and have, if the reports are trustworthy, foully murdered Gen. Chanzy, one of the few French officers that snatched any bays from the laureled Prussians; and with him, two, and perhaps three, other generals who were attempting to enforce order.” With a fatality inseparable from such movements, they will probably destroy their best men, the ones on whom all hopes of order and prosperity depend. But what can be hoped for stability and permanent peace, when men show themselves so prone to give up their own judgment and reason, and offer themselves the willing instruments of anarchy and mob law? Coming nearer home, we find events of the gravest importance transpiring at our own doors. It seems as if the spirit of demons had taken possession of a great portion of the people of the Southern States. This is manifested in the Ku Klux organizations, which are committing their depredations in all directions. The papers give full reports of the fiendish outrages which they are committing. It is the spirit of rebellion again becoming rampant. “The lost cause is not an abandoned cause.” The spirit of rebellion, for the time being overpowered by superior strength, is not subdued. It does not propose as yet to give up the struggle for the objects which at first it had in view. And while this hydra-headed monster is again lifting up its head, portending dangers to the country which cannot well be described, the Republican party whose unity and success present the only barrier to the progress of the foe, is cherishing bickerings and dissensions, which threaten to rend it in twain. The removal of Chas. Sumner from the chairmanship of the committee on Foreign Relations, as noticed last week, has raised a feeling which puts the unity of the party to its utmost test. It will be a marvel if the excitement caused by this step subsides, and harmonious action is again secured. But without harmonious action, the party cannot expect to succeed. Sagacious statesmen foresee the peril into which the country is thus brought, and give free expression to their feelings of anxiety. The N. Y. Independent of the 23d inst. says: “We have reached a grave crisis in the history of the country. We have also arrived at the supreme crisis in the history of the Republican party.” And right at the time of passing this dangerous crisis within, it has to meet the crisis of facing the rising spirit of rebellion without. Says the Independent again: “When we vote at the next presidential election, we vote face to face, and ballot to ballot with the rebellion.” And should the Democratic party succeed, what would follow? Again we quote from the same paper: “If the Democratic party were to come into power to-morrow, the whole work of reconstruction would be undone; the franchise would be taken away from the negroes, and under some form or other slavery, or its equivalent would be restored.” The italics are our own. But who can doubt from the spirit manifested by the leaders in the South, and their sympathizers in the North, that such would be the result. From another direction a colossal evil threatens the Republic with ruin. We refer to the encroachments of the papacy. In another column we present an article entitled “The Papacy Unmasked,” which plainly sets forth the objects which Romanists have in view in this country. When any set of men work with undisturbed unity to one end, their efforts will tell. Thus the Romish clergy have worked ever since they obtained any considerable foothold in this country, to secure the control of this government. They have not thought it prudent heretofore, to say much respecting their secret purpose in this respect. With increasing strength they wax bolder, and manifest less hesitation to throw off the mask. They now openly boast of the certainty of their getting control of this country, and declare that the only question now is, how soon. The time may never come, probably never will, when Roman Catholics alone will have power to control the affairs of this nation. But the time has already come, when, if any considerable number of Protestants should join with them in any measure, they would carry it through. Now all understand that the pet idea of popery, is the union of church and State; and many understand equally well, that the movement now on foot among Protestants to pass a religious amendment to the Constitution of the United States, means the same thing. Catholics will naturally favor this movement; and those Protestants who are so zealous to sustain it, will be willing to avail themselves of their help; nay, it is even urged in favor of the proposed amendment, that it is one in favor of which the Catholic can join as well as the Protestant. And who can say that, should Catholics, and those Protestants who favor the movement unite to carry it through, they could not frame that mischief into law to-day. We look for some such movement as this to take place. We might speak of other sources of danger and perplexity, issues from which the nations shrink, and over which the hearts of men are troubled. But we have noticed enough to awaken serious thought, and show something of the perils which beset our way. There is but one logical course for the people of God to take in this time. The world’s unrest should lead us to seek our refuge in the Most High.