ermine all
questions that can arise, of whatever nature,--whether relating to the
body or the soul of man, to his property or his conscience. By what is
strictly and purely church law are all things here adjudicated, for
other law there is none. That law is the decretals and bulls of the
popes. Only think of such a code! The Roman jurisprudence amounts to
many hundreds of volumes, and its precedents range over many centuries,
so that the most plodding lawyer and the most industrious judge may well
despair of ever being able to tell exactly what the law says on any
particular case, or of being able to find a clue to the true
interpretation, granting that he sincerely wishes to do so, through the
inextricable labyrinth of decisions by which he is to be guided. This
law was made by the Church and for the Church, and gives to the citizen,
as such, no right or privilege of any kind. Whatever rights the Roman
possesses, he possesses solely in his character of Church member; he has
a right to absolution when he confesses; a right to the undisturbed
possession of his goods when he takes the sacrament; but he has no
rights in his character of citizen; and when he falls out of communion
with the Church, he falls at the same time from all rights whatever. He
is beyond the pale of the Church, and beyond the pale of the law. Our
freethinkers, who are so ready to fraternise with the Romanists, would
do well to consider how they would like this sort of regimen.

Let me, in the second place, give prominence to the fact, that in the
Papal States there are no lay judges. There all are "anointed prelates."
This applies to all the tribunals, from the highest to the lowest. In
short, the whole machinery of the Government is priestly. Its head is a
priest,--the Pope; its Prime Minister is a priest; its Chancellor of the
Exchequer is a priest; its Secretary at War is a priest; all are
priests. These functionaries cannot be impeached. However gross their
blunders, or glaring their malversations, they are secure from censure;
because to punish them would be to say that they had erred, and to say
that they had erred would be to impeach the infallibility of the
Pontifical Government. A treasurer who enriches himself and robs the
exchequer may be promoted to the cardinalate, but cannot be censured.
The highest mark of displeasure on which the popes have ventured in such
cases has been, to appoint to a dignity with a very inadequate salary.
The Gov