ate in the Union, and
appropriates annually hundreds of thousands of dollars raised from
Protestant taxes to the support of its own ecclesiastical organizations,
and to the furtherance of its own religious and political ends. It has
reached that measure of influence that it is only by a mighty effort of
Protestant patriotism that measures can now be carried, against which
the Romish element combines its strength. And corrupt and unscrupulous
politicians stand ready to concede to its demands to secure its support,
for the purpose of advancing their own ambitious aims. Rome is in the
field with the basest and most fatal intentions, and with the most
watchful and tireless energy. It is destined to play an important part
in our future troubles; for this is the very beast which the two-horned
beast is to cause the earth and them that dwell therein to worship, and
before whose eyes it is to perform its wonders.

And in our own better Protestant churches there is that which threatens
to lead to most serious evils. On this point one of their own popular
ministers, who is well qualified to speak, may testify. A sermon by
Charles Beecher contains the following statements:--

"Our best, most humble, most devoted servants of Christ are
fostering in their midst what will one day, not long hence, show
itself to be the spawn of the dragon. They shrink from any rude
word against creeds with the same sensitiveness with which those
holy fathers would have shrunk from a rude word against the rising
veneration of saints and martyrs which they were fostering.... The
Protestant evangelical denominations have so tied up one another's
hands, and their own, that, between them all, a man cannot become a
preacher at all, anywhere, without accepting some book besides the
Bible.... And is not the Protestant church apostate? Oh! remember,
the final form of apostasy shall rise, not by crosses, processions,
baubles. We understand all that. Apostasy never comes on the
outside. It develops. It is an apostasy that shall spring into life
within us; an apostasy that shall martyr a man who believes his
Bible ever so holily; yea, who may even believe what the creed
contains, but who may happen to agree with the Westminster Assembly
that, proposed as a test, it is an unwarrantable imposition. That
is the apostasy we have to fear, and is it not already formed?...
Wi