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ae erence
, timate effect.
\ TRUTI IS POWERFUL,
VOL.
oceasrorAn: Essay.
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A. | BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF TIE PROGRESS
OF THE
- Ci sTHOLIC RELIGION IN EUROPE.
Among the many, remarkable events of the times
ave live in, there is, perhaps, no one more surprising
or more curious, than the course that political ‘affairs’
“Rave taken in favour of Catholicism, and the re-estab-
lishment of the g ancient faithin Europe. Andthe par-
ticular marner in which this restoration of the ancient
state of things has been brought about, together with
the circumstances by which it has been accompanied,
‘constitute a feature in the History of the Catholic Re-
ligion, which is equally striking, whether we consider
it with reference to the ancient prophecies declaratory
cof its permanency 2 and continual triumph, or whether
ave regard it in the light of an experimental proof of
the adaptation of the Catholic faith to the actual na-
ture of man, and his condition in society. Butaslight
sketch of its later history will best explain our view of
the subject, and will enable us to point out some in-
teresting facts and coincidencies,
It is scarcely twenty years ago, and within the me-
mory of most of us, that the Catholic Religion, which
three hundred years before was almost universal, had
in some countries in Europe scarcely any thing more
than a nominal existence.—And- this almost com-
plete extinction” of the genuine faith’ in those coun-
tries can clearly be traced to what is arrogantly called
the “ Reformation,” of which itwas the upshot or ul-
We need not here re-iterate that course
of history, which several able writers of our day have
_so ably explored in order to prove to our readers that
this said “Protestant Reformation” was conccived
in pride and cupidity, introduced "into England
from motives of brutal: Just,-supported and esta-
Dlished in sacrilegious plunder and the ‘devastation
of religious property, and maintained, to the present
hour, by the libellous and false assertions of in-
terested persons; who have profited, or whose suc-
éessors have profited, by the change of. religion; and
who have contrived, by an artifice not easily seen
through by the multitude, and by means as various as
they were disguised, to instil into the minds’ of nearly
three ages of diipes, the most vile, the most false, and
at the same tine the most contemptibly ridiculous pre-
_ judices against the best of ail religions, that it has ever
befallen the malice of the Devil to invent, or the cre-
dulity of deluded humai beings to believe,
We do not mean in this censure to include the ma-
. Ay honourable and liberal Protestants, who continue to
act in conformity to a belief that their faiths severally
are the best. For matiy such there are,and miany such we
know and highly respect; but we will appeal to the most
candid reader of the chronicles of past times, whether
all our Protestant Ifistories of England; all our other
popular tales and romances, and nearly every book
“of Protestant divinity, from the ponderous folio to the
penny tract, are not all of them pregnant with libels
on the Catholic religion—that religion which was uni-| ¢
versal for the first thirteen hundred years of Chris-
NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1825.
tianity, and from which all the religious information |)
which exists in Christendom was originally derived ?
But it is not our intention here to. enter into the
particulars of the “Reformation” and its frightful
consequences,—topics which’ have fallen into “abler
hands,* but merely to point out certain curious evenis,
in the course ofits progress towards its éonsummation
in the almost total destruction of religion in Europe.
We may observe, then, that out of the Protestant
Reformation, and its consequences on literature and
manners, arose the sceptical and ‘inflammatory wri-
tings of the philosophers of the 17th and 18th centu-
ries, which, with the co-operation of other causes, ul-
timately brought about the French Revolution and its
consequences, Out of this bloody and memorable fac-
tion arose Bonaparte and the splendid conquests ‘of
the revolutionary arms. | This lasttrevolution, with a
fury equalling that ofthe Iconoclasts of the preceding
age, desolated nearly every country:in Europe, ‘and
the most beautiful edifices and human <institutions of
Catholic Christendom, now shared the fate which si-
milar acts of violence had before brought-on Protest-
ant countries, till at length Europe wyas brought to the
state in which we may remember her between twenty
and thirty years ago—a period which, if intestine war
and bloodshed be ‘accounted ‘crimes; if anarchy and
total insecurity be hateful; ifit be sinful to be without
religion and morality, or unhappy th be without hope,
might well have exchanged the nine’ of Dark Age
with the blackest times of persecbtion and. bigotry.
Now observe that this darkness and these crimes arose
out of the absence of the Catholic falth andthe bond of
religious obligation, in defiance of tte vaunted civiliza-
tion and improvement of the age: whtereas, the unhappy
persecutions, which we cannot vo sometimes occur-
red formerly on the part of unworthy niembers of the
Catholic church, had their origin in the general i igno-
rance and Gothic brutality of those times, and y
the Catholic religion did more thaw any: thing else’ to
suppress. Moreover, it ought to be hoted that in save
age and bloody persecations, the Reformers and Pro-
testants in a ‘comparatively enlightened age, mach
outdid the Catholics of old, the very moment that the
violent convulsion of the “Reformation” gave thema
témporary power to tyrannise over those who remiain-
ed steadfast to the ‘genuine faith of our forefathers.t.
But to return to the period where we began, that is,
to twenty years ago; we may observe that there
seemed to be limits beyond which revolutionary fury
was destined never to go} just’ as ts centuries be-
fore there had appeared bounds over which re
tive violence and depredation- were not permitted: to
pass: The Pope, it has been said, wes to be preserv-
ed, and the House founded on the Rotk was to remain
unshaken’ by allthe religious and political convulsions
that successively threw down a thousand little schis-
matical communities from their sandy foundations, and
imarersed them 3 in the ovban of time to be forgotien
for ever,
ny
;
vc Dr. Miluer’s Lett
chureh, ulso Cobbett's If
{ For un illustration orth
tientaely hie Book of tho Cutholie
ters toa ingaryy und Me. Aa
AND WILL PREVAIL. “
NO. 9.
Now much as we hate the vulgar impiety of tracing:
out the interposing finger of Heaven on common oc-_
of distinguishing the special interference of God from
his general course of providence ; admitting, we re-
peat, all the difficulties that arise out of this very. ob-
scure subject, which make us fear to touch on it, yet
there is a circumstance so ‘remarkable i in what we are
going to present to the noticé of our readers, that howe
ever mystifying in its character it may bé, we should
not be justified in passingit over in silence, We have
said that there scemed limits to the rev olutionary de-
vastation at the period i in question—limits too, which
if the revolution had once passed, it would in ‘the i na-
tural course of things, have’ involved’ Pope, Church,
and every thing “established, i in’ one niass, of moral
chaos, The splendour of the revolutionary
with Buonaparte at their head, wearing the laurels ct
nearly half a hundred pitched battles, seemed to’ be
making a progress which no earthly force ‘could long
resist, But while the Goddess of Reason, the ‘fieti=
tious, deity’ of thé Révolation; Who. perRaps ibeti i
the appellation of the Whoré of Babylon” as, invei
as any other power, was trampling érowns and inites
to dust beneath her feet, the first Consul forsooth dis-
covered that he could not preserve any moral. order
among the people, without the aid: of the oib discards
ed Catholic faith... And thev, to complete the mroch-.
ery, he forced his holiness Pius VII. in spite of his
gray hairs and infirmiti¢s, to cross the snowy Alps, and
procced to Paris if otdér to plaée air imperial crown
on the head of an. usurper! ‘Bat mark the’ ¢onse-
quence, The great Conqueror insulted the P ‘ope,
and soon afterwards fell froin the pinnacle of his
greatness, His inordinate ambition in a short time
outstripped, his power—his scheni¢s failel—his confi- .
dence of success deserted him—a successful’ combina,
tion of the European pow crs, roused i into action by his
monstrous aggressions, was at length formed, and iy
the end overthrew his dynasty and thus the rival of
Alexander, of Hannibal, and of Caesar, died aii dutéast
on the barren rock of St. Iclena’s remote island.
We are far from ranking ourselves aitiong the de-
famers of Napoléon. ‘We’ admire’ his publié institu. --
tions, his improved roads, his‘aqueduets, his’ bridges
and his"pondeyous Works of art: but: the curious
events that preceded | his fall, and w hich paved the way
for the happy retarn ‘of the anciént faith in Europe,
are too strong a feature of those eventful times to
escapé the attention of every considerate Catholic;
and it may be obsérved, that the same course of poli :
cy w hich led to his overthrow, namely the combina
tion of the allied powers. 1 has prepared Europe grade.
rally for the restoration of that very Catholic religion, |
the supreme earthly head of which Napoleon vainly
imagined he could force into the servied of his faction.
In Europe; again peaceful, what a diferent state of.
things now presents itself from what’ it did twent
‘'years'ago. “Where the clarion sounded to arms, the
bells now ring? to matias.
In the temples once, pros.‘
tituted to revolutionary discussions, in which the wor
-|soug of rebels alone was heard; the mass is agaia
publishing.
, ’
chaunted, The nooks and corners of public buildings
¥ .
casions, disposed too, as we are, to adinit the difficulty ’
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