ory of the Church, and of the world,
contradicts every word of the foregoing, and demonstrates that the
"settled doctrine" of the Catholic Church, has ever been, as it still
is, to "intermeddle with the political contests of the day." I will
trouble you with two instances in which "religious denominations, as
such," have been guilty of what you deny. The Albany (N. Y.) State
Register, a paper which usually does not say what it cannot maintain,
states that ARCHBISHOP HUGHES has issued a mandate, _commanding_ all
Catholics in the Albany District, in the exciting State election now
coming off, to cast their votes for Mr. Crosby for the Senate. But Roman
Catholics, you falsely tell us, never "intermeddle with the political
contests of the day:" O no!

The other "instance now remembered," is the one in which you were a
candidate for a seat in the Legislature of Tennessee, in the county of
Giles: this was, according to my recollection, in 1831, or a quarter of
a century ago. At that time, there was a small Manual Labor School in
Giles, which had been incorporated by the Legislature, and at the head
of which was a _Presbyterian_. The gentleman who ran against you, if not
a member of the Presbyterian Church, "approved" their "creed," and
"witnessed their growth and progress for years with the highest
satisfaction." _You_ charged upon the stump that the Presbyterians were
seeking to establish their religion by law, to unite Church and
State--appealed to the Methodist and Baptist to put them down by
electing you, with a promise that you would check their march by
counter-legislation--and you were elected upon this issue. At the same
time, as the oldest inhabitants of Giles know, there were not fifty
Presbyterians in the county! But "no instance is remembered" in which
one sect has intermeddled with another--O no! You say:

"In the mutations of parties in this country, a new one has
lately arisen, to which, I apprehend, more of the Methodist
ministers have attached themselves, at least in the State of
Tennessee, than might have been expected. This party, known as
the Know Nothings, is so _peculiar_ in its organization, that
it seems strange to me that any minister or professor of
religion should be willing longer to continue in it."

Your apprehensions are well-founded, when you suppose that a very large
proportion of the Methodist ministers in Tennessee are either members of
this new party or