by the edict of a man stained
with the double guilt of usurpation and murder. Religion is the parent
of liberty. The rise of tyrants can be prevented in no other way but by
maintaining the supremacy of God and conscience; and in the early
corruptions of the gospel, the seeds were sown of those frightful
despotisms which have since arisen, and of those tremendous convulsions
which are now rending society. The evil principle implanted in the
European commonwealth in the seventh century appeared to lie dormant for
ages; but all the while it was busily at work beneath those imposing
imperial structures which arose in the middle ages. It had not been cast
out of the body politic; it was still there, operating with noiseless
but resistless energy and terrible strength; and while monarchs were
busily engaged founding empires and consolidating their rule, it was
preparing to signalize, at a future day, the superiority of its own
power by the sudden and irretrievable overthrow of theirs. Thus society
had come to resemble the lofty mountain, whose crown of white snows and
robe of fresh verdure but conceal those hidden fires which are
smouldering within its bowels. Under the appearance of robust health, a
moral cancer was all the while preying upon the vitals of society,
eating out by slow degrees the faith, the virtue, the obedience of the
world. The ground at last gave way, and thrones and hierarchies came
tumbling down. Look at the Europe of our day. What is the Papacy, but an
enormous cancer, of most deadly virulency, which has now run its course,
and done its work upon the nations of the Continent. The European
community, from head to foot, is one festering sore. Soundness in it
there is none. The Papal world is a wriggling mass of corruption and
suffering. It is a compound of tyrannies and perjuries,--of lies and
blood-red murders,--of crimes abominable and unnatural,--of priestly
maledictions, socialist ravings, and atheistic blasphemies. The whine of
mendicants, the curses, groans, and shrieks of victims, and the demoniac
laughter of tyrants, commingle in one hoarse roar. Faugh! the spectacle
is too horrible to be looked at; its effluvia is too fetid to be
endured. What is to be done with the carcase? We cannot dwell in its
neighbourhood. It would be impossible long to inhabit the same globe
with it: its stench were enough to pollute and poison the atmosphere of
our planet. It must be buried or burned. It cannot be allowed