g. The Archbishop of Bogota,
Senor Mosquera, and almost all the suffragan bishops, were driven from the
country, so that there was scarcely a bishop left in the republic. It was
now speedily seen that the godless radicals had overdone their ungracious
work. The country was roused. The tide of popular indignation set in
against the short-sighted politicians who persecuted the church, and they,
dreading an insurrection, withdrew, with the best grace they could
command, from the false position which they had so unwisely assumed.

(M35) Whilst the spirit of persecution brooded gloomily over many
countries of the new world, its influence began to decline in those lands
where for centuries the idea of liberty of conscience was unknown, where
even the slightest toleration existed not. Those northern lights, those
champions in their day of Protestantism and "_religious liberty_" Gustavus
Wasa and Gustavus Adolphus, were not mistaken when they bequeathed to
their country laws which were intended to be as unchangeable as those of
the Medes and Persians, and which forbade all Scandinavians, whether
Swedes, Danes or Norwegians, under pain of death, to embrace the Catholic
faith. Those princes were wise in their generation. They understood the
power of Truth; they knew that half measures were of no avail against it;
and that in order to stifle it, even for a time, all the terrors of
worldly tyranny must be brought into play. Their laws, more terrible than
the code of Draco, remained in force and without mitigation until a great
revolution had swept over Europe, and sent a military adventurer to fill
the regal seat of the formidable Wasas. In the time of Bernadotte (the
Doct Baron), the infamous penal laws were relaxed. To become a Catholic
now only led to imprisonment or exile. Six ladies of Sweden, in defiance
of this _milder_ law, came to profess the Catholic faith. They were tried,
condemned and sentenced to be banished from the country. The execution of
this barbarous sentence roused all Europe, and caused the abrogation of
the Swedish penal laws against religion. (M36) Thus was a new field laid
open to missionary zeal, and Pius IX., availing himself of so favorable a
change of circumstances, appointed a Catholic pastor missionary apostolic
at Stockholm. This devoted priest labors assiduously and in the midst of
difficulties, but not without fruit. He contends, with all the success
that can be as yet expected, against prejudices h