ges
and rights together, rolling to that grave's mouth the great stone of
Infallibility.

Nor let us commit the error of under-estimating the foe, or of thinking,
in an age when intelligence and liberty are so diffused, that it is
impossible that we can be overcome by such a system as the Papacy. We
have not, like the early Christians, to oppose a rude, unwieldy, and
gross paganism; we are called to confront an idolatry, subtle, refined,
perfected. We encounter error wielding the artillery of truth. We
wrestle with the powers of darkness clothed in the armour of light. We
are called to combat the instincts of the wolf and tiger in the form of
the messenger of peace,--the Satanic principle in the angelic costume.
Have we considered the infinite degradation of defeat? Have we thought
of the prison-house where we will be compelled to grind for our
conqueror's sport,--the chains and stakes which await ourselves and our
posterity? And, even should our lives be spared, they will be spared to
what?--to see freedom banished, knowledge extinguished, science put
under anathema, the world rolled backwards, and the universe become a
vast whispering gallery, to re-echo only the accents of papal blasphemy.

This atrocious and perfidious system is at this hour triumphant on the
Continent of Europe. Britain only stands erect. How long she may do so
is known only to God; but of this I am assured, that if we shall be able
to keep our own, it will be, not by entering into any compromise, but by
assuming an attitude of determined defiance to the papal system. There
must be no truckling to foreign despots and foreign priests: the bold
Protestant policy of the country must be maintained. In this way alone
can we escape the immense hazards which at present threaten us. And
what a warning do the nations of the Continent hold out to us! They
teach how easily liberty may be lost, but how infinite the sacrifices it
takes to recover it. A moment's weakness may cost an age of suffering.
If we let go the liberty we at present enjoy, none of us will live to
see it regained. Look at the past history of the Papacy, and mark how it
has retained its vulpine instincts in every age, and transmitted from
father to son, and from generation to generation, its inextinguishable
hatred of man and of man's liberties. Look at it in the Low Countries,
and see it overwhelming them under an inundation of armies and
scaffolds. Look at it in Spain, and see it extingui