dst of a crisis.
If, however, a crisis ever did exist in the affairs of this Nation,
since its independence was first achieved, which called upon the NATIVE
AND LEGAL VOTERS of the country to watch with sleepless vigilance over
their blood-bought liberties, that crisis must be dated in the year of
our Lord, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX! The great
Commonwealth of Humanity, in behalf of the momentous interests of Truth,
Liberty, and Religion, calls upon the present generation of YOUNG MEN,
who will have the issues of a coming revolution to meet, to qualify
themselves for the task.

There never was a time known, since the dark days of the Revolution,
when the civil and religious liberties of this country were so much
endangered as at the present time. This danger we are threatened with
from _Foreign influence_, and the rapid strides of _Romanism_, to which
we may add _Native treachery_, connived at, as they are, by certain
leading demagogues of the country, and a powerful and influential
political party, falsely called _Democrats_, who seek the Foreign and
Catholic vote, and are willing to obtain it at the expense of Liberty,
and the sacrifice of the Protestant Religion!

The great criminal of the nineteenth century, the PAPAL HIERARCHY, is
now on trial before the bar of public opinion, having been arraigned by
the AMERICAN PARTY. You are called on to decide, YOUNG MEN, as you wield
the balance of power, whether this Criminal, arraigned for treason
against God, and hostility to the human race, deserves the execrations
of all honest and patriotic men, and avenging judgments of a righteous
God! In order to decide this grave question, YOUNG _Gentlemen of the
Nineteenth Century_, you are to consider the inevitable tendency of the
principles of the Church of Rome--the actual results of these tendencies
as embodied in history--the indictment brought in by the AMERICAN PARTY,
and the testimony of the witnesses. When you have intelligently
considered the part the self-styled _Democratic Party_ has acted in this
infamous drama, you will feel it to be your duty to indict the
corporation claiming the right to be called the Great Democratic Party,
as _accessory_ to the treason, crimes, and infamy, of the aforesaid
Papal Hierarchy!

To you, then, Gentlemen, is this brief work most affectionately
inscribed by

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

For the last twenty-five years, the writer of this work has employed
mu