of conscience among Italians, these last will naturally soon acquire political liberty."

Here is palpably revealed the natural connection and alliance between the political despotism of the Papal See, and the oppressors of the people of Europe. The only object of the Christian Alliance was to give the Holy Scriptures to the people of Italy. How quick it excited the fears of the Pope, how conscious was the prevailing power at Rome, that wherever the light and power of that volume was admitted, that religious liberty, and rebellion against the assumptions of crafty priests, would follow, that the civil and religious despots were the natural enemies of the Bible, and hence was invoked the aid of those hated enemies of mankind, the ruling sovereigns, to aid in the work of suppressing the sacred volume.

The last official act known to the world of Gregory XVI. was dated May 8th, 1844, in which for the second time he expresses his dread of the circulation of the Scriptures. With more elaboration than is usual in such documents, the Pope points out all the dreaded evils, and renews his orders to his subordinates, to assist each other in zealously carrying out his decrees. Among other things his Holiness says,

"Subsequently, when heretics still persisted in their frauds, it became necessary for Benedict XIV. to superadd the injunction that no versions whatever (of the Bible) should be suffered to be read but those which should be approved of by the Holy See, accompanied by notes derived from the writings of the Holy Fathers, or other learned Catholic authors."

"As for yourselves, my venerable brethren, called as you are to divide our solicitude, we recommend you earnestly in the Lord, to announce and proclaim, in convenient time and place, to the people confided to your care, these apostolical orders, and to labor carefully to separate the faithful sheep from contagion of the Christian Alliance, from those who have become its auxiliaries, no less than those who belong to other Bible societies, and from all who have any communication with them. You are consequently enjoined to remove from

the hands of the faithful alike the Bibles in the vulgar tongue which may have been printed contrary to the decrees above mentioned of the sovereign Pontiffs, and every book proscribed and condemned, and see that they learn, through your admonition and authority, what passages are salutary, and what pernicious and mortal. Watch attentively over those who are appointed to expound the Holy Scriptures, to see that they acquit themselves faithfully according to the capacity of their hearers, and that they dare not, under any pretext whatever, interpret or explain the holy pages contrary to the tradition of the Holy Fathers, and to the service of the Catholic Church."

"Let me know, then, the enormity of the sin against God and his Church which they are guilty of who dare associate themselves with any of these societies, or abet them in any way. Moreover, we confirm and renew the decrees recited above, delivered in former times by apostolic authority, against the publication, distribution, reading, and possession of books of the Holy Scriptures translated into the vulgar tongue."

Without commenting upon the spectacle here exhibited, of the assumed infallible head of the true Church denying the Holy Scriptures to the mass of mankind, or attempting in any way to dispute the authority for so doing, every true American, whatever may be his creed, must ask the question, "Could our peculiar institutions flourish under such a system? and are those persons, in this country or Europe, proper citizens for a republic, who will submit to such dictation?" It cannot be disguised, that liberal principles, and the behests of the Pope, here meet in eternal opposition. One or the other power must give way. On the continent of Europe, wherever Romanism has undisputed sway, the Bible is indeed a proscribed book. In many Italian states, and almost under the very shadow of the dome of St. Peter's, families are imprisoned for being found with the sacred volume in their possession; delicate women are incarcerated in-dungeons, and their husbands and brothers consigned to the lingering death of the galleys.

A few examples of Bible burning have been afforded even in our

glorious country, and "the faithful" have quietly yielded up the volume, to be consigned by the Jesuit to the flames. Thanks to our institutions no civil punishment has followed, but what have been the more terrible denunciations of the Priest upon the guilty the world will never know. This is the spirit that the American wars against— he cannot find it sanctioned by any commendable toleration, because it is sanctioning wrong. He cannot believe it to be in accordance with any religious sentiment, for the conscience enlightened by reason revolts at such tyranny-the question then again recurs, Are individuals capable of self-government who will yield up unresistingly, and from any plea, or by the dictation of any power, this most sacred right of reading, not only the Holy Scriptures, but any book of morals that has made its impress upon the world.

The Sacred Scriptures are not only the Divine revelation of a life to come, and the Guide for the life present, but also the great Conservator of morals, and the basis of all true social virtue and happiness. In the quaint words of Jeremy Taylor, the Bible is "the ligature of souls, and the great instrument of the conservation of bodies politic." Montesquieu justly observes, that "the principles of Christianity deeply engraven in the heart, would be infinitely more powerful than the false honor of monarchies, the human virtues of republics, or the servile fears of despotic states." We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.* All history conclusively proves, that wherever the Bible was possessed by the people, virtue and civilization advanced;—wherever it was not, the converse was no less true. A spurious civilization may exist without the faith of Christianity, but it is a civilization that opposes no check to idolatrous superstition and cruelty, and the most flagrant immoralities and crimes.

The moral effects of the Bible are illustrated in the history of the Jewish race; since their superiority over the heathen nations is mainly

* Burke.

to be ascribed to their possession of the Divine Oracles. Since the introduction of Christianity, the influence of its Divine precepts on society is still more marked, in mitigating the horrors of war, in suppressing the iniquitous and sanguinary rites of heathenism, and the gladiatorial combats, which, according to Lipsius, sometimes cost Europe from twenty thousand to thirty thousand lives in a month.

But the influence of the Bible is to be sought for, not so much in the councils of princes, as in the debates or resolutions of popular assemblies, in the conduct of governments towards their subjects, or of states and sovereigns towards one another, of conquerors at the head of their armies, or of parties intriguing for power at home (topics which almost alone occupy the attention, and fill the pages of history), as in the silent course of private and domestic life, and in the yet more private regulations of the heart. Here have ever been its great triumphs. The fact of its inculcating self-government renders the Bible the great essential in a state where the people are invested with the sovereign power.

The presence of the Divine Oracles sanctified the councils of our patriot fathers alike in times of war and peace. It was to the Bible that they made their appeal in all emergencies, in the tented field and in the legislative hall. It was to this fact that we may ascribe the noble testimony of history, which asserts that our Revolutionary struggle was unstained by a single crime. It was to the same source that we trace the pure patriotism and self-sacrificing heroism and faith of the revered founders of our free institutions; and it is in a like jealous regard and cherishing love for the Bible, as our national text-book of civil and religious liberty, as well as of Christian faith, that we confidently rest all our hope for the prosperity and perpetuity of our great Republic. Shall we lightly esteem so precious a boon? Shall we ever forget that it comes to us with the sacred insignia of Divinity, baptized with the blood of ancient saints and worthies, and all fragrant with celestial Truth? Shall we forget that it has passed through the

*Paley's Evidences.

fires of persecution all unscathed, and that its soul-entrancing truths sustained confessors and martyrs who suffered to the death to transmit to us, their descendants, the inestimable treasure? Can we be free, we would again ask, if we suffer ourselves to be deprived of the Scriptures and are those friends of liberty and free institutions who would proscribe their circulation among the people?