CHAPTER II
ROMAN CATHOLICISM SLAYS
PRESENT
As I sat on the comfortable trans-continental express train,"Sun-Set Limited," talking with a Church of Rome official, while traveling across the vast state of Texas, he stated that all these aforementioned atrocities were PAST, that the Roman Church of today has changed her policy and that none of them could ever occur again.
For the convenience of those who are inclined to believe that astonishing statement, may I now give you some prevalent facts of what Romanism is doing in various countries today! Remember an absolute truth: where Rome is in the ascendancy, the non-Romanists are dealt with by a drastically different law than she is obliged to adopt in other lands.
For simplicity, we shall divide the second section of this treatise (i.e.,"Present-Day Romanism") under five headings: ROMANISM SLAYS: Politically, Physically, Financially, Morally, and Spiritually.
Politically, Romanism is ingenius. The most elaborate, efficient, and accurate foreign office in the world is in the Vatican, situated in the historic city set on seven hills. Her sixty papal legates, with her thirteen hundred bishops, operating through her tens of thousands of priests, monks, nuns, et cetera, obtaining information through their confessional from four hundred million adherents, ascertain the current tenor of the entire world. This Vatican-governed police force is the largest on the globe. It works incessantly, secretly, vigilantly, and relentlessly to secure every detail that the pope demands. The pope and his secretary of state know more about world politics than the heads of any government on earth. (Hitler knows this; and so does Mussolini.) They have on record the present political situation of every part of the known world from Lhassa to Timbuctoo.
Why does a so-termed spiritual society interest herself so keenly in politics? Simply because she HAS BEEN - IS - and will FOREVER BE a political agent. Between the short span of time from 1870 to 1929, the popes were outwardly shorn of all temporal power. Then Mussolini, in order to pull Italy closer to himself, made an alliance with the papacy. He gave Pius XI full sovereignty over Vatican State with a "little" magnanimous offering of approximately forty million dollars, or eight million pounds sterling. For this, he gained the benediction of the pope. The avowed atheist was now an ardent disciple! This marked the beginning of the pope's return to "out-ward" temporal power.
While Romanism directly governs only one-sixth of a square mile, with just over one thousand population, she indirectly is a mighty international political giantess. Her influence is felt in nearly every capital of the civilized world. Most large cities of America and Britain, with other countries, have a unit of the papal society to bring state politics under the hand of Roman politicians. Already in Britain and America she has succeeded in placing her own men and women in many prominent key positions. It is very remarkable that Mussolini is tenaciously suppressing this "Catholic Action" Society in Italy. He knows more about the intrigues of the papacy than we!
What is the meaning of it all? Rome is preparing her stage for the world of today to bow in adoration to her as the nations of the Middle Ages were obliged to do.
As Hildebrand, heralded as the greatest pope of the Middle Ages, made Henry III emperor of the Holy German Empire, stand at his gate for three days begging for papal forgiveness (thus proving to the empire in the mind of the pope that he was greater than the emperor); as Pope Innocent III subjected King John to his iron will until it caused the English barons to demand the Magna Charta (the pope became so angry when the people were enfranchised that he issued a ferocious bull annulling the Charta of Freedom); just as she worked through her demi-devil Jesuits and swayed the French throne, and planned the insane "Gun Powder Plot" in England, so she is still playing the fox with the nations of the world. If the leaders of nations do not awaken, and become alert, she will soon draw her curtains, and the ACT will begin! Protestant-governed countries often wonder why countries with Catholic majorities abuse Protestants with such rigid intolerance. Rumania, for example, as the world knows, has brutally handled its Protestant population, especially the aggressive evangelical communions. Church property has even been confiscated after closing the place of worship! The answer is apparent when we realize that the Patriarch of Rumania is the Minister-President, also the Minister of Education is an archbishop of the ruling church. Thus one is easily made to see that the iron hand of prostituted religion is wielding a mighty influence in politics TODAY. One of the publicized personalities in the current remapping Europe game is Father Josef Tiso. He is a puppet under Hitler. While Czechoslovakia was being submerged into the Nazi blood bath, he stood as Hitler's right-hand man! He is premier of Czechoslovakia today! It is the age-long story of PRIEST AND POLITICs! When one sees a huge statue, as in a plaza in Santos, Brazil, of a priest with a raised hand holding a cross while with his other hand he beckons to a troop of soldiers to follow him to battle,"he that hath eyes to see" will easily observe that Rome is still "politic-ing" TODAY!
The Roman hierarchy has made love to Mussolini and thereby gained supreme religious right in Abyssinia. (Gold was a portion of the love affair.) Since then many Protestant missionaries have suffered expulsion. She calls Spain her most devout child, and Franco dances to her tune! Only a few weeks past Franco went to the cathedral and placed his bloody sword on the Romanist altar. He dedicated it to the CHURCH! Spain had now been made Christian!
In conclusion, if the general public of many of our countries knew all of her heinous intrigues, working behind closed and locked doors, without a doubt a holy war would be staged. This makes the twenty million faithful papists of America a real danger to our nation, because they are obliged to be Romans first - then Americans! But my plea is passive and directed to the honest heart. Therefore, this treatise is satisfied in presenting irrefutable truth that papalism is POLITICAL TODAY. ROME SLAYS, POLITICALLY!
ROMANISM SLAYS -- Physically
Physically, Rome has slain without any scruples in the past. Her eternal policy of "heretics are not to be tolerated but destroyed by death" has led millions of sincere folk to the choice of a martyr's crown! This, Rome confesses, has been true. Our concern now is: Does Romanism SLAY PHYSICALLY TODAY?
To ascertain this, we must visit lands where ecclesiastical Rome rules supreme.
Journey with me to Eire, the southern part of the Emerald Isle. To arrive there, we have to travel across the "rocky road to Dublin." (The Irish Sea is notorious for upsetting gastric equilibrium!) Upon our arrival in Dublin, the capital of Eire, may I in form you that the population of the little nation is approximately three million. Of these, some 93 to 95 per cent are Irish Romanists.
How are Protestants received in this papist stronghold? I shall describe to you some of my personal experiences here.
With a companion, Bert Mitson, I went to Eire to engage in some evangelistic activities. On the first Sunday morning we went to the Y.M.C.A. to speak to a group of the poor, who enjoy a free breakfast each Lord's Day morning. At the door, a member of the Catholic Action Party met us. As he counted his rosary, he said,"Don't go in there; they are all heretics." Without any argument, we passed by him, and walked inside. During the meeting, he looked in the door and saw that I was speaking. After the service, as we left the building, he approached my friend and me and snarled,"Give reason for your faith!" With this he gave me a ram in the ribs with his elbow. When we said nothing, he gave me another slam in the side and cried,"You are heretics." As he did this while we walked for a whole block, I decided he should be glad that I was a "heretic," for before I became one I would have mopped the streets with him for punching me along the sidewalk, decrying my philosophy of life. After assuring us that there was no hope outside of the "Mother Church," he departed upon our informing him we were visitors to the country!
While riding on a street-car in Dublin, a ruffian jumped up and was about to strike us. The street-car conductor was obliged to put him off the car. I did not ascertain why he was going to smite us in the face unless we had failed to salute the Romanist churches we were passing, as the others on the car were doing.
For two weeks my friend and I searched for a place to hold meetings in Eire. The papists would not rent us a hall nor a plot of ground for a tent. There were halls for rent, and the caretakers were eager to rent, but upon our confession of the use we would make of them, we were harshly denied the privilege. This even included the city hall that was for rent, but as I was a Protestant, the secretary spoke very unkindly to me and said it was not for rent to me.We wrote the city council for a plot of ground for a tent that was not in use. This was flatly denied us. We prayed we walked, we talked, until at last we were obliged to give up in defeat. ROMANISM IS CRUEL. If there are any who feel a bit doubtful of this attitude, please go to the interior of Eire and try to do evangelistic work. I will guarantee you a bruised body and possibly worse!
It may surprise you to know that Romanist-Eire levies a custom duty on imported Bibles! She also taxes the retail sale of the Bible! When colporteurs fail to comply with her rigid, nonsensical laws, a pimping priest drags them into the courts. (This happened while I was there.)
While speaking with a prominent Methodist minister in Dublin, he informed me that a young Romanist priest had whipped him with a horse-whip in a public square for street preaching and giving out tracts. The papist-controlled law did not even attempt to protect him.
When I told this same minister that I desired to do evangelistic work in Eire,he smiled and asked what I would do with the converts. As I did not know,he said that over a period of years he had only had a few turn from Romanism. To keep these from being massacred, he was obliged to rush them over to Eng-land at his own expense and support them until em-ployment could be found. He stated that Rome is holding her Irish stronghold intact by FEAR. This is her age-long tactic.
Many other details we witnessed and heard of, but I am not attempting to exhaust this subject; only fully expose, as a Christian duty, to the thinking public, the true nature of Romanism.
To show that Eire is a criterion on this issue, shall we visit Brazil next? After sailing south for about two weeks from New York on a luxurious, modern vessel, you arrive in Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the largest of the South American republics. We must bear in mind that here Rome has ruled for centuries; therefore we present must expect to see her at her best. (The present government is not pro-Romanist; therefore, Protestants are enjoying more privileges at present than ever before, but this is not because Rome desires it to be so.)
In Brazil, we are again confronted with the same hateful attitude. The Romanist priesthood have agitated the people against their competitors, even to the extent of stoning Protestants. They have also wrecked places of worship with sticks and stones. If a Brazilian decides to change his religious belief, he is ostracized from home and community. He is invariably threatened and often beaten. Usually he must give up his new revelation of Christ or move to another part of the country where he is not known. On one occasion, an entire group of believers were chased into the tropical, crocodile-infested forest. They were kept there with sticks and stones for three days. Civil officials had to demand the papists to release them.
I once met a veteran missionary who had laboured in Brazil for some twenty years. When we met, we were both traveling to Brazil; therefore, he often related some of the outstanding incidents of his missionary career. He explained that when he first went to Brazil the papists were extremely cruel to him. If a native Brazilian indicated any sympathy toward him, the priests put that one on the black list. If one of the Romanist adherents attempted to turn from the Church of Rome, it resulted in unbearable persecution for the individual and his family. For a few years, he laboured with all integrity, with little visible results. At last a few of the Brazilians saw his good and honest life and listened to his message. They decided that the horrible tales of their priests were not true; therefore, believed the simple. unadulterated gospel of Christ.
The missionary stated that they had only thirteen in their mission, and he was really proud of that small number. But a dark night came! He was scheduled to go to another town and preach. As he packed his luggage for the journey, one of his members came rushing into his home, very excited. He asked the Brazilian what was wrong, and he replied, between quick-drawn breaths,"Oh, nothing! I have just come over to walk to the station with you tonight."
"You need not bother; as it is late, you should go on home," the missionary advised.
But with trembling hands, the Brazilian grasped the missionary's suitcases and proceeded to go with him to the railway station. As they walked down the street, the missionary, with no sign of nervousness, mused, "What is ailing my church-member? I have never seen him so excited before."
But the missionary did not know that the local priests had bribed a desperate man to throw a dagger through his heart as he went to board the train that night. This Christian had discovered the plot and concluded,"If I make the intrigue known, possibly the entire group of us non-Romanists will have to suffer death. To stop the trouble, I will go and silently protect my missionary!" Therefore the missionary was walking very composed, to travel to his next engagement, but the highly excited Brazilian was taking his last walk before going to heaven! At the station, they stood and waited for the train to pull in. While doing so, the Brazilian incessantly watched every twig that moved. Every noise in the shadows was under his eagle eye. The missionary felt the tension in the breast of his convert and noticed that he was watching every movement in the dark shadows of the palm-trees. As the train rolled in and stopped, he started to step aboard. Suddenly a figure rushed from the shadows. In a second, a cold, cruel steel blade was singing a song of death through the night air. But the sinister figure from the shadows was not as fast as the noble Christian! In a flash, he jumped before the missionary, opened his chest to capacity to shield him, then dropped to his knees. The missionary looked, and a long, keen blade had sunk deep into the chest of his beloved friend. As blood ran down his bosom, the man looked up with the death rattle in his throat, and a glassy, death-look in his eyes, and mumbled, "Missionary, I have died for you." He slumped to the ground, a martyr to the cross of Jesus Christ.
As the missionary stood that night on the open deck of the ship and tenderly related the story to me, a briny tear trickled down my cheeks. I gazed to the far horizon and looked at the blazing constellation that makes the glorious "Southern Cross" and thought -"That earnest, sacrificial martyr reminds me of our Saviour!" When Satan desired to thrust a dagger through us and send us to the land of the lost, Jesus voluntarily stepped between! He bore the pain of the blade that was meant for us! While bearing it on the cross, He cried,"It is finished!" Redemption! Emancipation! Enfranchisement! Heaven! All accomplished for poor victims like us! Hallelujah! " & Thank You!" "Thank You, Jesus! Thank You!! And thank you, dear Brazilian martyr, for over your dead corpse, men and women saw the beauty of true Christian sacrifice. As a result of your gallant death, a revival came to that city."
ROME SLAYS --- PHYSICALLY!
As it is invariably the same in every Romanist-dominated part of the world (where the civil government will allow it today), shall we consider one incident in the great Belgian Congo? Mr. Wm. Burton, a personal friend of mine, is the co-founder of the Congo Evangelistic Mission. He has a large squad of missionaries working with him, besides five hundred native pastors, who hold an average of one thousand meetings each day! Here violence is a common occurrence. The catechists from Europe work upon the base emotions of the Blacks and cause them to commit outrages against the Protestants. They have taken our evangelists and beaten them; thrown pig-dung and sand into their eyes, and left them to crawl home. If you deny this situation, it is only because of ignorance. Everyone who is informed about the true situation in Congo land realizes that Protestants have suffered long under the cruel hand of Romanism. The only accusation against the non-Romanist is that they proselytize; however this simply means that they get the natives really saved, experiencing a changed heart.
One of the saddest cases of Romanistic monstrosity is that of a friend of mine, Mr. Lief Earl Erickson, who is a missionary to Peru. When he and his party arrived in that land many years ago, he chose a section in northern Peru that was notorious for its antagonism against missionaries. Many had already been drivên out by Romanist priests. As soon as they arrived for mission-work,the priests instigated a propaganda campaign against them. Every papist pulpit was ringing with abuse upon the newcomers. They were called politicians sent out by the American government to overthrow the Peruvian government. (These were European-born priests.) The priests pro-claimed that these new missionaries were known to be murderers and deceivers, working under a pretext of religion. But alas, the new missionary with ardent zeal, preached the gospel with great fervor from morning until night. The sick were healed through his prayer of faith. Lives were changed by his powerful entreaties for them to turn to God. The religious-sodden Peruvians were leaving Romanism! Seeing the people turn from Romanism, the priests became infuriated. At last the new missionary had some followers ready for Christian baptism. As the baptismal service was in progress, the priest in the local "Church of Bethlehem" told his congregation that if they did not kill these heretics, they would have the plagues of Egypt poured out upon them, that God would dry up their river and stop the water supply! The insane mob rushed from the church and down to the river bank where the baptismal service was being held. At the water's edge, three missionaries and four natives were mercilessly pelted with stones. Two of them were left for dead; one was Mr. Erickson. A stone had crushed his skull. After the mob dispersed, friends and loved ones came and picked them up and cared for their wounds.
My dear reader, I was speaking to this man only a few days past. The concussion of his skull has left a permanent dent on his head. It has further left him with a permanent mental weakness. He told me he could no longer concentrate; that his memory would leave him at times and that his nervous system was shattered. A heart-rending fact is that this poor man is permanently disabled to do any kind of work. He has a wife and six little children who are dependent upon him!
Friend, as I stood and talked with this missionary of the cross and learned that he had no animosity in his heart, I saw again the true spirit of Calvary living in the twentieth century!
When the Indians of Peru saw the continued grit and courage of these "heretics," the tide turned! Many were converted as a result of the stoning. With this, I shall leave this thought with you: ROMANISM SLAYS -- PHYSICALLY TODAY!
ROMANISM SLAYS -- Financially
Today Romanism is the richest society in the world. The organization that vainly boasts of most resembling the One who did not even have a bed to lie on or a personal purse for His daily needs, has hoarded together the largest fortune known among men! If this claim were not so serious, it would be a rare joke.
Since Constantine contributed enormous grants of money and land to the church, Romanism has incessantly engaged in finance and commerce. Cardinal Gibbons writes that Constantine gave ecclesiastic Romanism munificent donations of money and real estate. Her lustful passions were so enraged for the glittering metal and the clover-clad hills that she broke every commandment in God's great Book to fill her coffers to overflowing and extend her property to the horizons!
Not being satisfied with the wolf's portion that she gained in politics and world market, she turned and began to ravish her own people! She oppresses them beyond any other religious or non-religious society in all the world. Thousands and tens of thousands have been reduced to abject poverty by the merciless hand of church and priest! Every action or benediction from the church or priest has a great price attached to it, altogether disregarding the fact that every gift from heaven is free of charge. If an adherent revolts and declines to pay his dues, he forfeits all hope of blessing from church and priest. Rather, anathemas are hailed at such an one and possibly a term in purgatory awarded him.
A man in the State of Oklahoma was dying on his bed at home. Being reared a papist, he sent a special messenger for the priest to come and perform the last rites of "extreme unction." The priest came and quoted his price as twenty-five dollars for his service. The man, with bated breath, said he did not have that amount of money. The priest, upon this confession, arrogantly walked out of the house, stepped into his limousine, and drove away. The poverty-stricken man was left to die outside of the "believed" blessing of the church! Poor Lazarus of Luke 16 would have had no hope of heaven had he been a Romanist!
If you are a papist, a price was paid the church for you to be born; then you had to pay to be christened. From this entrance into the church you are obliged heavily to pay for every act of grace you receive until the death rattle is felt in your throat; then you have to pay her for the privilege of dying! After you are dead, your loved ones are still made to pay her for your eternal redemption! Friend, it is an infernal, superb scheme of graft from the cradle to the grave!
If you are a Romanist, your church will sell you an "indulgence," or license to sin. She will sell you "holy water" for your purification. She will sell you a "scapular," or a bit of cloth that the blessed Virgin Mary has worn on her body -- (an image) -- this will secure you an early release from purgatory! She will send you across the world on an expensive pilgrimage to obtain some healing or blessing (as she recently sent Mr. Fred Snite, of Chicago, to Lourdes, France, to be healed in his iron lung. Of course, Mr. Snite returned in his iron lung!) She will sell you images for the home; crosses for your neck; beads (rosaries) for your hands; candles for your worship; and a thousand and one other articles of merchandise. In Dublin, Eire, a large church has set a price for entering every Sunday. It has different doors of en-trance and a different fee for each door. If you take the one that leads you to the far rear of the church, you get in for a British pence; the next door is two pence, and the nearest one three pence. Fancy, if you can, a house of worship,so called, charging poor people the Irish being among the poorest in the world -for entering a church! But Rome's most financially productive and greatest fraudulent game is the creating of shrines, where miracles are supposed to be performed; the Thomas-à-Becket's in Canterbury, England, is a good example. The Protestant government stopped this at the Reformation because of the amazing revenues this artifice was yielding. A present-day outstanding example is the one at Lourdes, France, where they have golden stairs and a golden altar erected with money obtained from the deceived and gullible public. No wonder she can build an imposing masterpiece of architecture on every hillside, and colossal cathedrals, as she is now building in London, in Liverpool, and in every great metropolis of the world. It is blood money, sucked from the poor, deluded, blinded worshipers of pagan Romanism. Romanist friend, my heart goes out to you, but, oh, how I long for the day when God Himself will deal with corrupt papalism!
Not only does the Roman Church drain every cent possible out of her people, but she is an open-handed commercial giant in many countries. In China, many of our missionaries know of priests who make a fat living on lending money, and in real-estate merchandizing! (Spiritual fathers in business!) In the Amazon Valley, in Brazil, priests are known to own vast plantations, and as spiritual and temporal overseers, make sheer slaves of their subjects! The government has been known to come to these "parishes" and demand their legitimate revenues, which the priests try to hide behind their church organization!
During the Middle Ages, the monks and bishops would become so rich that certain kings and monarchs would deliberately divest them of hoarded gold, and vast real estate ownerships that they had accumulated, and then let them start over again! (This may be the next program for the nations of today.) It might open your eyes to realize that at present the Church of Rome holds title to over two billion dollars worth of (untaxable) property in the U. S. A.!
With the handling of fabulous wealth from the seat of Romanism in the Vatican to the remote Jesuits on the cow ranches in Argentina, what is the moral effect that it has produced among its leaders? To the heart-rending humiliation of honest Romanists, it has resulted in covetousness, bribery, thievery, shady deals in business, and a universal departure from the royal ideals of Christ. I meet many honorable papists who know of this "money-glamour" and deplore it.
In Brazil, we saw many unfinished Romanist churches. The popular talk in the streets was that the priests had taken the money for their erection and misappropriated it. Some of the churches have been many years in construction, and much money was donated, yet they stand like gaunt specters of the night to remind us that ROMANISM SLAYS-FINANCIALLY! A perfect example of this is seen in the down-town square in the great industrial city of Sao Paulo. A standing joke is how the priests have stolen the funds designated for its completion.
Everyone realizes that this thought could be greatly enlarged, but truth does not need any unnecessary enlargement; therefore, in closing this section of this chapter, I wish to inform you that America is the present gold mine of Romanism. Money pours into her coffers, like a gigantic Niagara, from this country. It is irrefutably proved in the book, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, that American priests get such a volume of business and such fabulous amounts of money for saying their many prayers that they hire the French priests, who are usually poor, to say them at a cheap rate. Surely American and British Roman-ists should some day awaken to the fact that they are being hoodooed! Americans give their faithless priest money to pray their deceased loved ones out of a place that does not even exist, and the lazy priests get their poverty-stricken comrades in France to promise to do the job at a cut rate!
America, listen! The Special Correspondent of the "Daily Mail" (one of Britain's largest dailies) announced to the world on December 2, 1938, that America gives more to the Church of Rome than all the world combined! Americans! ROME SLAYS-FINANCIALLY!
ROMANISM SLAYS -- Morally
Is Rome cancerous? Is she morally polluted from the core to the remotest coherent part? Has she always neglected morals? Are her so-called celibatical priests depraved men of base desires? Are her nunneries cesspools of social filth? Does a lime pit exist in any nunnery in the world, which is used to burn their illegitimate off spring? Have the morals of priests ruined entire nations, causing collapse of governments? Has the confessional caused many innocent girls to lose their virtue to a sexually perverted priest? Does Rome incessantly beckon her so-called Christ-followers to carnival, gambling, and drinking, this very day?
Romanist officialdom, these are an infinitesimal part of the queries running through the minds of your people, whether they confess it in the "dark closet" to you or not! Romanist disciples of the twentieth century desire to know what their society really represents.
To these multitudes of dissatisfied, enlightenment-seeking Romanists, I wish to state a few straight-from-the-shoulder facts. In this delicate matter, as in the others, everything that I state I will prove to anyone who denies or doubts the stated fact.
To find a criterion on this subject, we are obliged to go where Rome is not hampered by a Protestant majority!
Every intelligent Christian realizes that the moments most fraught with danger, in our Christian lives, are those given over to hilarity, pleasure-seeking, and fleshly amusements! Romanist friend, there is the "rendezvous" of Rome's fall, morally!
Her pace has been unchecked in indulging in every worldly pleasure known among men. She forgets that Christians should be different, that they should be separated from the iniquity of worldlings. If you are in the least acquainted with her, you know that she sponsors great carnivals during each year. I was in Dublin when she staged a carnival nearly the size of a county fair. There were gambling devices and all the usual fair-play. Gambling, in games, is the ordinary pleasure for nearly every social she gives. Eire, with its Irish Sweepstakes, supports church and government from its funds! (The government is at present a few million pounds in debt to the racing committee.) As for drinking strong drink, any good Romanist can drink the vat dry if he likes.
In China a priest was coming out for missionary duties; the Chinese custom officers found a few cases of liquor in his possessions. As their law provides, they levied an enormous tax for its importation. The priest would not pay the exorbitant fee; therefore, the officer proceeded to confiscate his liquor. A missionary standing near, heard the priest tell the custom officials, " have come to give my life to your people; and this my greatest pleasure, you are taking from me!" Fancy, the greatest pleasure of a minister of Christ being a bottle of hot alcohol. What an example to the heathen!
Rome's priests are heavy drinkers universally. There is a priest in Seminole, Oklahoma, if he isn't dead, who has been picked up by the local police out of a muddy ditch, dead-drunk, no less than a dozen times. (The fall of a "holy father!")
Rome's best child, Eire, will show us whether she condones drink or not. If you have visited southern Ireland you know that an Irish village is made up of a dozen houses, one store with a sub-post-office, a Romanist church, and A LARGE PUB (saloon).
But why should not the Romanist children wallow in foul alcohol? their parent does! At headquarters in the Vatican State, which has about one thousand population, there are FOUR PUBLIC HOUSES (saloons). Bearing this in mind, we understand why the pope needs a jail handy in his dominion of only one hundred and nine acres, or one sixth of a mile!
For these and other reasons, wherever Rome rules, morals are low! Compare, for example, the morals of England and France (I do not speak with disparity of our French friends, for in our three or four visits to their land, I have greatly learned to love those whom we have met). But one country has been Romanist for centuries, and the other has been Protestant. Just to cross the English Channel reveals an amazing difference in morals. The multitudes of French open urinals are odious to the English. The street love-making of French youth is nauseating. If they had had higher examples in the past, the present would be different!
For a further comparison, note that where Rome has the smallest representation as in Scandinavia, you find the purest blood in all of the world, accompanied with the highest moral standards! Rome has only a few hundred disciples in any of the Scandinavian countries. Take Brazil, for an opposite comparison, where Rome boasted of almost one hundred per cent spiritual jurisdiction for centuries. A conservative statistician estimates that 75 per cent of the population is suffering in some degree from social disease. A virgin woman is said to be almost unknown!
Why is Brazil in this horrible social condition? Priestcraft is the answer! In Brazil, the priests do not bother about hiding their wickedness behind a cloak. They take as many young girls, and have children by them, as they like. Sometimes a priest will ruin as many as a dozen of his parish girls. They often have many children, and the townspeople all know to whom the children belong. Notices have been seen on Romanist churches stating that Father So-and-So's daughter or son is to be married on a certain date.
This is not an isolated case, since most of the priests have a harem. A Peruvian missionary declares a priest in her town has over one hundred children! This does not sound incredulous to those who have traveled or lived in these lands.
To mention a very singular case: In Sao Paulo, Brazil, we passed a cement cross by the roadside every day. At night we would see a group of worshipers around it burning candles and incense. On one occasion, I stopped and investigated the shrine and found some small knives tied together, and many stubs of candles. I inquired about this peculiar place of worship. After asking some half dozen different local people, I found that their answers agreed. The story of this cross is as follows: A priest was found making love, committing adultery with a man's wife. The Brazilian warned the priest a few times about this matter; then he threatened the priest and vowed to kill him if he ever found him visiting his home in his absence. One day he came in unexpectedly and found the priest with his wife. The priest jumped up to flee, but the husband chased him. At a venture, he threw his long, sharp knife, and it lodged in the back of the priest, who fell dead on the sidewalk. The Roman Church raised her adulterous hands in horror and exclaimed, "A martyr! A martyr!" Thus she erected the cross and beckoned her people to come to this holy shrine of a martyr and get their prayers answered. Hundreds now frequent this foul-smoked cross and pray to this base dead man, whom they think to be in heaven and ask him to petition the Christ in their behalf!
How can we expect the Brazilians to live excellent moral lives above their leaders! ROME SLAYS-MORALLY!
To point out to you that this condition does not only prevail in other lands, but in our own homeland, I will describe one personal incident. A few years past I was taking some private Spanish lessons from a Spanish professor in a Romanist college. As my time was limited, I took lessons, whenever possible, including Saturday. On this day I walked into the great empty college to find my teacher, and in the hallway stood the principal of the college, who was a priest also, wearing clerical garments. With him were two nuns whom he was heartily embracing.(They had come to the college for private lessons.) When they saw me, the principal laughed, and turned and walked down the long corridor, squeezing his beautiful girls like a play-boy. I told my Spanish teacher, who was a man from Madrid, that I had seen the principal hugging two very pretty nuns. He explained that he was not to talk about such matters!
Dear reader, ROME SLAYS -MORALLY!
ROMANISM SLAYS Spiritually
The Roman Church is deeply submerged in vain philosophy! Her catechism is full of rank skepticism regarding the simple verities of Christian teaching. Her ritual is shrouded with crude mysticism. Her followers ultimately become inebriated with nonsensical emotionalism. The conclusion of her delusion is stoicism, or impassive asceticism. Therefore, our last division of present-day Romanism is termed: ROMANISM SLAYS SPIRITUALLY!
This is our most vital accusation against the present papal system. It is the greatest, because she destroys the souls of her followers. For centuries, her high pressure men-of-thought have submerged the society in vain philosophy (Colossians 2:8). These pagan teachings, being adverse to the Bible, have produced rank skepticism regarding God's infallible Book. Then, she deceives her adherents with absurd mysticism about dead "saints," foolish relics, holy and miraculous shrines, etc. To tune their spirits to this extreme, their lives are incessantly excited with irrational emotionalism. Then Rome unmercifully conquers her victims and binds them with almost unbreakable cords.
Friend, if you are a Romanist, you are a veritable slave! You are a cog among many in the enormous papal-drive wheel. You are absolutely not your own, but must live, think, and act as the great hub of the wheel dictates. Your soul is bound with fetters of tradition and superstition. If you attempt to think for yourself regarding your religious convictions, you are cursed by church and priest. This makes you a mere machine dominated by the colossal man-made Roman church. Kind friend, my soul is stirred within me as I picture your eternal destiny, chained and shackled to the papal system!
Primarily, the Roman Church does not even know from whence she obtains her authority to dominate your life! She emphatically states that the Bible is not the absolute authority or supreme court of the Christian faith--but the Church. Then you ask her where the Church gets this amazing authority, and she shyly quotes the Bible as her proof! This is absurd in the extreme. If the Bible is the giver of this authority, it must be the greatest and the final, or its authority is thereby annulled! The Bible, being a divine Revelation, is powerful,"like a sharp, two-edged sword." The Roman Church, realizing this, hides the Book from you lest she lose her usurped authority!
The greatest death-blow to humanity in Romanism, is that she invariably associates the Church with soul salvation! She invests her society with redeeming power. To be out of her books means damnation; to be in, is salvation. Did the Church die for us? Neither, then, can she save us! Christ, Who died for us, is our only Saviour! Praise Him! God, the Father, states in John 3:16 regarding Jesus Christ, His Son, that whosoever believes upon Him (not the Church) shall have eternal life!
Rome deliberately closes every door into heaven except the one she claims to open; thus papalism drives many of her dissatisfied children into infidelity and agnosticism. A truth from my personal experiences, in speaking with travelers about their souls, reveals that some three-fourths of the infidels and agnostics that I have met were reared Romanists! One contact that has greatly impressed my life was that of a young French banker whom I met while traveling across the Gulf of Tonkin from French Indo-China to Hong Kong, in company with Mr. Howard Carter of England. I approached him concerning religious matters, after a long, casual talk. His very amicable manner changed suddenly when I mentioned religion. In a stern, ironical tone, he suggested that we dismiss this objectionable subject. I urged him to "air" his views upon the matter. This he did! "When I was seventeen years of age," he commented, as he gazed retrospectively into the moonlit sea,"a Roman priest came to me and handed me a big gun, and ceremoniously anointed it and me with holy water. Then he commissioned me in the name of Christ, to go to the front lines and kill those German dogs. As I had no hatred against the Germans, I sat down upon a rock holding my new gun, musing: 'On the other side of the border are the German youth; a priest is giving them a gun, saying, "Go, kill those French dogs."' I concluded from that moment that if this was religion, I did not care for any." From this thought, the brilliant young business man mentioned frauds in the church that he had discovered, and insincerity in the leaders. "Thus," he stated,"I am an agnostic."
Until nearly the breaking of dawn, I spoke with this troubled friend of Jesus --- of His beauty of character and perfection of life. I pointed out to him that Christ was our supreme Example. Then I implored him to start Christianity anew with the proper criterion directing him. This he sincerely promised to attempt.
Other apostate Romanists give bigotry and hatred exercised toward non-Romanists as their reason for deserting her. Some become weary of her dead rituals and thereby stop attending. A family whom I met last week said that the priests in the local church persistently demanded money until they were tired of it, and therefore they left the Church. Papalism of today needs converting! It should hear the words of Jesus in His compassionate plea that we love not the mammon of this world.
Precious Romanist, kindly sense the spirit in which this treatise is written! From the depths of a sincere soul, I am interested and concerned about you. If this be so, will you please reconsider your hopes upon which you have based your eternal life? Get a volume of the Holy Bible; read the wonderful words of Jesus over and over again. Then, from your own decision (not mine) look up into the great, sympathetic face of our loving Saviour and cry,"Guide me, O my Lord, into the right way, which leads to Thee and eternal bliss."
"I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6, Jesus says).
