estly were by a
generalship that was quick to seize and fortify in a conspicuous way the
strategic points of influence, especially in the new States, might
imperil or ruin the institutions and liberties of the young Republic,
was stimulated and exploited in the interest of enterprises of
evangelization that might counter-work the operations of the invading
church. The appeals of the Bible and tract societies, and of the
various home mission agencies of the different denominations, as well as
of the distinctively antipopery societies, were pointed with the alarm
lest "the great West" should fall under the domination of the papal
hierarchy. Naturally the delineations of the Roman system and of its
public and social results that were presented to the public for these
purposes were of no flattering character. Not history only, but
contemporary geography gave warnings of peril. Canada on one hand, and
Mexico and the rest of Spanish America on the other, were cited as
living examples of the fate which might befall the free United States.
The apocalyptic prophecies were copiously drawn upon for material of
war. By processes of exegesis which critical scholarship regards with a
smile or a shudder, the helpless pope was made to figure as the
Antichrist, the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition, the Scarlet Woman on
the Seven Hills, the Little Horn Speaking Blasphemies, the Beast, and
the Great Red Dragon. That moiety of Christendom which, sorely as its
history has been deformed by corruption and persecution, violently as it
seems to be contrasted with the simplicity of the primeval church, is
nevertheless the spiritual home of multitudes of Christ's well-approved
servants and disciples, was held up to gaze as being nothing but the
enemy of Christ and his cause. The appetite of the Protestant public for
scandals at the expense of their fellow-Christians was stimulated to a
morbid greediness and then overfed with willful and wicked fabrications.
The effect of this fanaticism on some honest but illogical minds was
what might have been looked for. Brought by and by into personal
acquaintance with Catholic ministers and institutions, and discovering
the fraud and injustice that had been perpetrated, they sprang by a
generous reaction into an attitude of sympathy for the Roman Catholic
system. A more favorable preparation of the way of conversion to Rome
could not be desired by the skillful propagandist. One recognizes a
retributive justice