try, gentlemen, to
fancy that you are being treated to some elegant exhibition of the
refinement and liberal culture of the times."

Loud bursts of hilarity now and then relieved the seriousness of the
meeting. Even Greifmann would clap applause and cry, "Bravo!"

"Let us stand united to a man, prepared against all the wiles of
intimidation and corruption, undismayed by the onset of the enemy. The
struggle is grave beyond expression. For you are acquainted with the
aims and purposes of the liberals. Progress would like to sweep away
all the religious heritages that our fathers held sacred. Education is
to be violently wrested from under the influence of the church; the
church herself is to be enslaved and strangled in the thrall of the
liberal state. I am aware that our opponents pretend to respect
religion--but the religion of would-be progress is infidelity. Divine
revelation, of which the church is the faithful guardian, is rejected
with scorn by liberalism. Look at the tone of the press and the style
of the literature of the day. You have only to notice the derision and
fierceness with which the press daily assails the mysteries and dogmas
of religion, the Sovereign Pontiff, the clergy, religious orders, the
ultramontanes, and you cannot long remain in the dark concerning the
aim and object of progress. Christ or Antichrist is the watchword of
the day, gentlemen! Hence the imperative duty for us to be active at
the elections; for the legislature has the presumption to wish to
dictate in matters belonging exclusively to the jurisdiction of the
church. We are threatened with school laws the purpose of which is to
unchristianize our children, to estrange them from the spirit of
religion. No man having the sentiment of religion can remain
indifferent in presence of this danger, for it means nothing less than
the defection from Christianity of the masses of the coming generation.

"Gentlemen, there is a reproach being uttered just now by the
progressionist press, which, far from repelling, I would feel proud to
deserve. A priest should have said, so goes the report, that it is a
mortal sin to elect a progressionist to the chamber of deputies. Some
of the writers of our press have met this reproach by simply denying
that a priest ever expressed himself in those terms. But, gentlemen,
let us take for granted that a priest did actually say that it is a
mortal sin to elect a progressionist to the chamber of deputies, is