The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

PAPAL ESPIONAGE. 489and in all countries the Papacy has leant upon ignorance.It has been one of the grand instruments by which it hasruled mankind.Its acme was the midnight of the world.Idolatry came in with Via])romhe ofknoicledge,— " Ye shall beas gods, knowing good and evil ;"" but it perpetuated itsreign through ihefact of ignorance.The Papacy employed to an unprecedented extent espionagein its system of government. Despotism is always base; andthe Papacy, as the most despotic, has also been the basestof governments. Former tyrannies employed spies and laidsnares, to discover their subjects' secrets or anticipate plots;but the Papacy had the merit of establishing a regular system,by which it took cognizance of thought, and miide it asamenable to its tribunal as actions and words toother governments.This it accomplished by the machinery of theconfessional. All were obliged to confess. These confessionswere sent to Rome ; so that there was not a thoughtor a purpose which was not known at head-quarters. Thisinvested the Pope with omniscience. Not only did he knowall that was done and spoJcen^ but all that was tlionght^ throughouthis empire. From the Seven Hills he could see intoEurope lay " naked andevery home and into every heart.open" beneath his eye. What a tremendous power ! Hitherto,under the most intolerable tyrannies, men's thoughtswere free. Words the tyrant might punish ; thoughts defiedhis power. But under the Papacy no man dared tothink. He felt that the eye of Rome was looking into hisbosom.She could drag him into the confessional, and compelhim, by the threat of eternal flames, to lay open his wholesoul. From her eye nothing was hid. And to what purposedid she turn this knowledge of the secrets of men ? Tothe purpose of strengthening her own dominion, and sinkingher foundations so deep, that every attempt should be in vainto unsettle or raze them.But again, the papal government effected the prostitutionof the civil power to an enormous extent. The distinctionbetween the functionaries of the Church and of the State