The Pacificator. (Augusta, Ga.) 1864-1865, June 24, 1865, Page 145, Image 5
fur the “sword of the Lord and Gideon,” was not
tiie only victory-bringing weapon from' Heaven’s
bright armories.
The noise of the clouds affrighted armies. The
servant of the prophet sa w the chariots of heaven
and the mustering squadrons of the skies, around
about Elisha. And, again:
“The wirtow3 of Ashur were loud in their wail,
The idols were broke in tbe temple of Baal,
For the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Und melted like snotv in the glance of the Lord.’’
4 If, then, wq believe the record of the past, and
dare not look God in Ilis eternal face, and tell
him it is not true: If we read the promise “Lo,
1 am with you alwnvs, even unto the end of the
world,” and dare not question the word of Jeho
vah 1 Why fear to-day ?
What matter to the Christian the rise and faj]
of empire, the dismemberment of States, the crash
of arms, the How cf blood, or the price of bread ?
The wheels of the great chariot of thought roll
ever onward to the goal of earth’s final redemp
tion, and in the path of that dread progress a
thousand Confederacies may rise and fall.
Empires may tremble, and the crash of their
fall may shake the hills: cities and fair fields may
bmade desolate, and the sickening sun may
blush in the blood'freedy reflected from gory fields.
l»i:t to the Christian, these things are blit the
!ire, the earthquake, and the whirlwind, (But pre
pared the mind of the Prophet, for the “still small
voice of God.” They bring no more terror, than
doth the heaven-sweeping tail of the comet to the
of the man of science, or the far-flashing
.Northern light to every navigator of the frozen
Oc .'an.
Oid, but still appropriate, is the account of the
storm at sea when all the passengers looked for
d'-ath. The littte girl of the Captain was the only
ci!m person on board, and one of the frightened,
asked the cause. “M by should I fear?” said she,
“J rj Father \v at the helm /”
Our common ship is braving now, one of the
fierce storms of time. Timbers are quivering and
i- .rdage snapping, and men are pale and women
in tears, a!*''. V r and anon, some bold sailor or
phot is swept off into the sea of blood. But faith
> is calm even now, lor the hand of God rests upon
* lie'' wheel of fate.
In long gone days, a solitary stranger engaged
a boat to carry bint across the Adriatic sea. Be.v
omne to the shore, the boldest hesitated tc? impel the
boat into the foaming waves, for a storm was abroad
on the deep. For a moment the stranger, muffled
in his robe, watched the fearful sailors, and then
throwing wide the folds of the garment from the
warrior form that all Romans knew, he said,
Fear not, you carry Caesar /” The boatmen
1,,, .'led the presence which was believed to be ac
companied on field and flood by the victorious
pods, and the galley met the sea with such strokes
of defiant oars as baffled even its might.
Ye Priests of God, and Pilots and Helmsmen
is the ship of Zion, trend le not for; yourselves
H j your charge, in- even these times of scarcity
s and want, for your freight is immortal souls and
:! at cargo is in the care of God. A greater than
( .. sar is on board, when one child lias said in
faith, its evening prayer.
Among the many beautiful thoughts of the poet
Campbell, the bard of Hope, no thought is more
exquisite than that idea of the “Last Man.”
-The last of human mould,
That should croition’s death behold,
As Adam saw his prime.”
The picture of the last man iu the world is
Avid, and the reader can almost, see the “skele
,;ms of nations around that lonely man,” ihe
bloaehin" bones, the rusty steel, the utter loneli
ness, so
“Earth’s cities had no sound nor tread,
And ships were drifting with the dead,
* x.. shores where ali was dumb.”
• But amid it all, the lonely remnant of earth’s
millions thus addressess the'Sun, then fading from
(he heavens :
“Go, Sun, while mercy holds me up,
On Nature’s awful waste,
To drink this last, most hitter cup
Os grief that man shall taste.
Go tell the night ts at hides thy faefe,
Thou sawest the last of Adam’s race,
On earth’s sepulchral clod,
The dark’ning universe defy
To quench his immortality, *
Or. shake his trust in God.”
With that faith, we .would that God should in
s-fire his people this day. A faith that has made
man feel secure amid the drowning of a world,
that has peopled the hills of Canaan with the hosts
of the angels, has fed the starving, stopped the
mouth of lions, and raised the dead.
The arm of Jehovah grows 'no weaker with ad
vancing years, and the name of Jesus is a talis
TIIE PACIFICATOR —:A. CATHOLIC JOIJRTsLAJo.
man in Heaven that Noah and Daniel could not
use.
The faith of the Eternal stands pledged to an
swer faithful prayer in the name of llis Divine
Humanity, and he who loves his God, fears little
from man.
B hen the Christian fears, it is sure evidence
that he has been doing wrong, sos “perfect love
casteth out fear." Sin is said to be the heritage
of us all, arid perfection but the dream of an an
gel. Yet let us dream that angel dream, for the
Seraph’s faith, and the Seraph's power, go hand
in hand with the Seraph’s love. Dream that
dream forever, Oh, Church of God, and thy divine
oattalions can shout amid calcined worlds and
burning stars, that grandest battle-cry of the uni
verse, “God wills il! God wii.i.s it!!”
- - ——«<XS -J rl y• ♦ !*»-
[From the Freeman's Journal.]
Presfey*C!!'jpt2s AVr.il Falsnstock.
The Presbyterians are very uneasy. They ex
hibit enlargement of the pupils of the eyes and
itching of the nose. They have been making
what they call “deliverances,” but they are such
deliverances as the inspired prophet spoke of—
they have brought forth wind, Duly!
They say the “man of sin” troubles them. We
know 1 — and so dq many of their own people—that
men of sin abound among them. But this is not
their present trouble. The “man of sin” is, iu
their view, the Pope, or Popery itself. But they
are hallucinated—with their own knowledge of
their willing halluncination. They suffer from a
disease that Fahnstock says his vermifuge is a
sovereign remedy for. But, besides being troubled
with worms, which produces great restlessness
among these innocents—they are troubled with
empty meeting houses, resulting in empty purses.
These Presbyterian preachers have left off the
semblence' of '-preaching the Gospel of peace!
They have become political howlers of a kind so
vile that they would lie hissed off any political
rostrum. Here is a sample, quoted by a “religious”
Presbyterian newspaper, published in Louisville.
The Preslfyterian preacher who edits the paper
says it is a true report of a part yf a “sermon”
delivered by a Presbyterian minister:
“Beloved, you have the sole responsibility of
performing this work, and I charge you to sec to
it, that you do not falter in its execution. All
theca vilUans, fro: : the highest to the lowest . de
serve to be bung, to be shuffled off tbe mage o!
action, and consigned speedily, to a damnable
hell.
“In conclusisri, beloved, let me implore you, by
your recollection of the trials and privations of
our forefathers; by the mftnifqld mercies and
blessings which we, as a people, have so long en
joyed ; by your ardent attachment to the cause of
God and humanity, and by your abhorrence of;
sin and ingratitude, that you “give no slumber to ,
eves, nor sleep to your eyelids,’ till you shall havs 1
caused such wailing and lamentations in the rank
of these villainous traitors, as'shall make the
damned in hell conclude that torments are noth
in<r when compared to that of, these fiends o's
earthm-
As may be judged, men stop praying to hear
such stuff as thin in the-name of religion. They
can hear better cursing than this in loyal league
bar-rooms ! So these"preachers are getting hungry.
Tt was Sterne, or some such fellow, that used to
call his “abuse of Popery” his “Cheshire cheese.”
When his dinner was scant, he had a Cheshire
cheese to eke out with ; and when he could find
nothing else to give point to his sermons, he said
.“pitching into Popery” never failed to please the
people.
By all accounts, the poor be-deviled Presbyte
rian preachers hayc done themselves out of din
ners, and out of all means of living. Asa dying
spasm they try once more the old sing-song of
abuse of the Catholic Church. They have been
“ delivering ” on the matter iu their annual as
sembly. They are alarmed at the strides of
Popery!
Some “religious” body lately, Presbyterian or
Methodist, wanted to make a religious matter of
insisting on the admission of negroes to the right
to vote! They wanted them, they said, to coun
terbalance the Irish and German Catholics. They
claimed the negroes as Protestants. But Presi
dent Johnson, who has lived all his life in slave
States, told' a set of negro preachers that the ne
groes, thus claimed as reliable Protestants, to the
number of “four millions,” “live in open and no
torious concubinage!” Is this what makes them
reliable as Protestants ?
There are, however, two bodies, eac-h claiming
to be the Presbyterian Church in these States.
One.claims to be the genuine Jacobs ; the other
to be the oid original Jacobs. They split and
blacked each others'eyes in a quarrel, nearly thirty
years ago, on some notions none of them knew any_
thing about. The gist of it was that one party
held that it was in the eternai decrees of God to
damn some men eternally, and it was foolish in
these to try and save their souls. The other
“Church,” we believe, htd that some people
ought to wish to be damned eternally 1
Os these bodies the “genuine Jacobs” had its
Assembly graced by two nigger delegates. One
of these “ colored genunen ” said :
“Our people (the negroes) are naturally Pres
byterians ; it has only been their unchangable
faith in the eternal purposes of God that has sus
tained them through the bitter past. They are
not Methodists—they are Calvinists, quite as much
as their masters, except that the latter believed
God had one eternal purpose, and the down-trod
den race believe the exact reverse. Let us do
our work here in America, fairly and as others
may—not as the Sabbath schools yesterday,
crowded behind our juniors—and let the schemes
of colonization find place when the work Provi
dence designed for us here is completed.”
r i ex: is a hard hit at the Presbyterians !
These “ played out” Presbyterian ministers
think Ihoy can get up a persecution of Catholics!
Poor fools ! That persecution is fast coming on,
in this land, but Presbyterians, or any other sect
professing the name of Christian, will not be as
the dust in the balance towards promoting it!
The time is not just yet.
We recommend to these feeble folk of Presby
terianism to put blankets round them, put their
feet, to the fire, and to take Fanstoek’s remedy.
If it don’t do good it can’t do hurt, and they are
in a bad way I
The Presbyterians are “loyal,” and must be
lieve the President. The President says that the
“ four millions” of negroes—preachers and all—
“ live in open arid notorious concubinage !” This
dirty, licentious set are claimed as “ Naturally
Presliyterians!” Well, we wish the “ brethren
and sistern •’ of the modern Presbyterian bodv
joy of the acquisition of gambo. Practically li
centious in the most extreme degree, and “natu
rally Presbyterian ” ’by superstitious fatalism,
Sambo is a fine set-off to the Irish race—who are
naturally Catholic.
[From the Springfield (Mass.) Republican.]
A ElcSti'ious Civil War.
The question seems an absurd one, and yet
some of the sectarian newspapers are discussing’
it and attempting to prepare the public mind for
it. They could hardly undertake a more wicked
and mischievous work; but they assume to be
merely giving needful warning of what must soon
come. The pretence is, that the Roman Catholics
have a deop plot, to get possession of the govern
ment of the United States, destroy our free insti
tutions, make their religion the State religion, and
in fact establish a despotism, with perhaps the
Pope in'person at its head; at any rate, with all
the hideous machinery of the inquisition to torture
us into support of its faith and authority. The
(descriptions given of the frightful things to be
•Tone by the Pope’s government of the United
Btr.tes, when fully established, are enough'to make
one's blood freeze with horror, if read with seri
ousness and credulity. The monstrous barbari
ties of the darkest of the dark ages are all to be
reproduced here. IV hat do our Protestant editors
mean by attempting to excite such sectarian alarm
and hostility ? It is impossible to suppose that
they believe there is any cause for it. They bring
no facts to show that the Catholics of the country
seek political power as a sect, or that they carry
their sectarianism into politics. In fact, they are
less obnoxious to this charge than the Protestants;
for, while in many parts of the country a Cathqlic
cannot be nominated for any office because of the
fact that Protestants will not vote for Catholics,
we never heard of an instance of a Catholic re
fusing to vote for . the candidate of his partv be
cause of his being a Protestant. If there is any
bigotry in this matter, the Catholic is by no means
the chief offender. But let us see what some of
the prophets of evil have to say. This is from .the
Boston Recorder , the organ of first-proof Ortho
doxy in Massachusetts:
“The real extent of Romish control at this mo
ment is unsuspected. It may be sufficient in IBGB
to give us a President, two-thirds of both houses
of Congress, and the Governors and a majority in
both houses of three-fourths of all the States. An
amendment of the Constitution could thus be ef
fected, making Papacy the national religion, and
the only one to be tolerated. But the most san
guine may not hope so much so soon. Rome may
see it safe to aspire no further in 18G8 than to a
Vice President. To make a President of him
would need but a skilful dose of poison—a trifle
that Romo never wanted when the motive was ad
equate. Rome hopes that at some future day,
some future or present party shall find itself
obliged openly to sell itself to her. If so, and
another rebellion arise iu consequence of il.j ruin
or success (and either would bring it on), mightier
means on this side of the jAtlnntie, and certain
recognition on the other, will attend its very
opening.”
Villainous is the only word that can describe
the meaning and intent of such language as this.
1 he Catholic can hardly find means to retort by
showing that there have been Protestant as well
as Catholic despots and assassins, and that neither
political ambition, nor intolerance, nor cruelty,
have pertained exclusively to any one denomina
tion. . But the great objection to such sectarian
assaults is, that they tend to provoke the very
evils they are professedly directed against. Noth
ing is more to be deprecated than the creation of
hostility and , suspicion between the sects into
which our communities are divided, and especially
the attempt to introduce the proscription of any
denomination into politics. When the Catholics
or any other sect make an assault upon our free
institutions it will be met. It is monstrous in
justice to attempt to excite suspicion and ill-will
against them in advance. We can secure our
selves in no such way.' Our safety lies in the ed
ucation of the people. The peril growing out of
the large addition of foreigners to our voting pop
ulation comes not from their religion but their
ignorance. We must educate the whole people.
We must insist on intelligence as a qualification
fog the ballot. Then, whether the voters are black
or wliffe—Catholic.or Protestant—they will know
enough to vote for their own welfare and that of
their children, and will jealously resist the first
approach of despotic power come whence it may.
Let us have no attempts to excite denominational
passion and prejudice; and no monstrous predic
tions of sectarian civil war.
The Pope's E>csign in the Encyclical.
Here, as we venture to surmise, is iu part the
significance of this Encyclical, iu so far as it vin
dicates various prerogatives of the Church, which
have long been generally dormant, or in so far as
it stigmatizes various modern errors, which has
very largely influenced legislation and administra
tion. The Pope's primary object, indeed, in its
promulgation was (no doubt) to fulfill the com
mission lie has divinely received, of maintaining
doctrinal purity; lor many of the errors con
demned deny truths immediately revealed by God,
and all the rest tend inevitably to such denial.
But there is an important social end also to be
attained. No one can say how soon the time may
arrive in large portions of Europe, when, the ar
gumentative issue will be between Catholicism, as
a whole, and the revolution, as a whole. The Holy
Father is, therefore, reasonably anxious that loyal
Catholics should be trained, not to defend this or
that particular institution, against this or that par
ticular assault, but to support the old body of
Catholic truth in its full integrity, against the now
iags3 of revolutionary error. It may be added
that various Catholic doctrines appear to treat
disadvantage if considered separately from the
rest. One instance here will'be a sample of many.
Considering the great tendency of civil rulers to
selfishness and oppression, the doctrine of non-re
sistance may well appear to give society inade
quate protection against such evils, unless you
take also into account “that salutary influence”
spoken of in the Encyclical “which the Catholic
Church, according to the institution and command
of her Divine Author, should freely exorcise to
the end of the world over nations and their rulers.”
. But if thinkers would suppose the Church per
mitted freely to exercise these her divinely-Hven
preiogatives, they might learn to see that no more
perfect security could well be imagined against
tyranny and despotism. Ic ig of. vital moment,
then, we repeat, that the social doctrines of Cath
olicism be mastered in their full consistency and
harmony, and not merely apprehended ip detached
fragments. Thus, and thus only, will the Church’*
children be enabled to fight, when the day of bat
tle arrives, clothed in her full and impenetrable
armor. Thus, and thus only, will*their success
bear any kind of proportion to their zeal. That
by such means, indeed, they will be able indefi
nitively to withstand and retard the triumphs of
revolutionism, is abundantly clear; whether a re
sistance can be put forth which shall be fully ef
fectual, insomuch that a reflection may set in to
wards better and higher principles—this is an
issue which is in God’s hands alone, and on which
it would be absurd to speculate. Only let Catho
lics do their part; when the crisis arises, let it find
them at their post; well acquainted with their
doctrine, loudly professing it, and prepared to act
or suffer in its behalf. Thus they will have sash
ioned themselves to be their Creator’s serviceable
instruments, of which he may make such use as
to Him seems good. —Dublin Review.
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