and fellow-citizen,
THE AUTHOR.

September, 1853.

PREFACE.

"There are moments when every citizen who feels that he can say
something promotive of the welfare of his countrymen and of advantage to
his country is authorized to give _public_ utterance to his sentiments,
how humble soever he may be."--_Letter of Archbishop Hughes on the
Madiai_, February, 1853.

"There may be, in public opinion, an Inquisition a thousand times more
galling to the soul than the gloomy prison or the weight of
chains."--_National Democrat_, March, 1853.

1st. The above extracts, from different but respectable sources,
comprise the author's chief motives in the publication of the following
work. It is a well-known fact, that thousands of our fellow-Christians,
in all parts of this vast _free country_, are continually subjected to a
most trying ordeal of temptation and persecution on account of their
religion, and that the wonderful progress of Catholicity and renewed
power of the church only add to the malice, if not to the influence, of
sectarians, in their efforts to make use of this odious persecution of
servant boys and servant girls, of widows and orphans, to build up their
own tottering conventicles, and to circumscribe the giant strides of
what they call "the man of sin."

A very intelligent American lawyer lately remarked to the writer of
this, "that, about twenty-five years ago, the parsons fulminated all
their eloquence against Satan; but they seem to have formed a league
with him now, for all their vengeance is directed against the pope, who,
they say, is far more dangerous than Old Harry."

When we know this to be literally true, and find our poor, neglected,
and uninstructed brethren in danger accordingly, how can any thing that
can be said, written, or done, to alleviate their condition, or to
remove prejudice from the public mind, be counted a work of
supererogation?

2d. The corruption of the cheap trash literature, that is now ordinarily
supplied for the amusement and instruction of the American people,--and
that threatens to uproot and annihilate all the notions of virtue and
morals that remain, in spite of sectarianism,--calls for some antidote,
some remedy. In every rail car, omnibus, stage coach, steamboat, or
canal packet, publications, containing the most poisonous principles and
destructive errors, are presented to, and are purchased by, passengers
of both sexes, whose minds, like the appetite