were on good terms with them, I
scarcely could remain on good terms with my conscience. So much for
myself--now a few words as to the question between us.

I am claiming moral and material aid against that Czar of Russia who is
the most bloody persecutor of Roman Catholics. The present Pope himself,
before the revolution, when he was yet more of a High Priest than of an
Italian Despot, and cared more about spiritual than temporal business,
openly and bitterly complained in the councils of the Cardinals against
that bloody persecution which the Roman Catholics have suffered from the
Czar of Russia. Now, considering that I plead for republican principles,
to which the Reverend Father Jesuits should be _here_ warmly
attached, if they are willing to have the reputation of good citizens,
and not to be traitors to your Republic, which affords to them not only
the protection of its laws, but also the full enjoyment of all the
privileges of your republican freedom;--it is indeed a strange, striking
fact, to see these reverend fathers here in a Republic so warmly
advocating the cause of despotism, and so passionately persecuting the
cause I humbly plead, which at the same time is the cause of political
freedom and religious liberty for numerous millions of Roman Catholics
throughout Europe.

As I am somewhat acquainted with the terrible history of that Order, I
thought to find the explanation of this striking fact, in the historical
ambition of that Order to rule the world--this, their everlasting
standard idea, to which they in all times sacrificed everything, and
misused even the holiest of all religion, as an instrument to that
ambition. But here in St. Louis I got hold of a definite circumstance
which makes the matter quite clear.

I hold in my hand the printed Catalogue of the Society of Jesuits in the
province of Missouri, as they term your state. Herein I see that
amongst the thirty-five members officiating in the college of the Father
Jesuits, in St. Louis, there are not less than _eight_ Reverend
Father Jesuits imported from Austria. Now you see why I am so persecuted
here. This plain fact tells the story of a big book.

But amongst all that the reverend gentlemen oppose to me there are only
two considerations to which the honour of my cause and of my nation
forces me to answer in a few remarks. They charge against me that my
cause is hostile to the Roman Catholic religion, and to get the Irish
citizens to side with