degradation of woman
groaning under the load of her own infamy; when he saw the heart-rending
inhumanity which slew the innocent babes and threw them into the Tiber;
when he saw how prisoners of war, slaves, and soldiers were trained for
bloody fights, and entered the arena of the amphitheatre, and strove
whole days to strangle one another, for the special entertainment of the
Roman people. When Peter came to Rome, that city was the condensation of
all the idolatry, all the oppression, all the injustice, all the
immoralities of the world; for the world was centred in Rome.

Here, then, were evils to be remedied similar to those of our day and
country. Pagan philosophers, poets and orators, had tried their best to
cure these evils and to elevate mankind, but they had tried in vain.
What they were unable to bring about, St. Peter accomplished by
preaching to the Roman people Christianity--the religion of Jesus
Christ--which imparts to the mind infallibly the light of truth, and
lays down for the will authoritatively the unchangeable principles of
supernatural morality, true prosperity, true happiness, and peace on
earth and for eternity. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that the
Capitoline temple, and with it the many shrines of idolatry, the golden
house of Nero, and with it Roman excess and Roman cruelty, the throne of
the Caesars, and with it Roman oppression and Roman injustice, gave way
and disappeared in proportion as the light of Christianity was infused
into that foul mass, into that rotten society, centred in Rome. It was
this Christian religion that changed a sinful people into saints, and so
many holy inhabitants of heaven. And what the blessings of the religion
of Christ brought about in Rome, they bring about wherever they are
diffused. Hence all true lovers of the country tell us that there is but
one remedy for the cure of the diabolical spirit and the crimes of our
country--it is to teach our children the truth and blessings of the
Christian religion. It is the Christian religion that infallibly and
authoritatively teaches the duties of civil authorities towards their
subjects, of husbands towards their wives, of parents towards their
children, of masters towards their servants, of pastors towards their
flocks, of the faithful towards their pastors, of servants towards their
masters, of wives towards their husbands, of children towards their
parents, of subjects towards their lawfully constituted civil
aut