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

THE SAXCTTFIED DAGGER. 441priests wore in innumerable instances the public ministersand secret advisers of monarchs. This was to some extenta matter of necessity, inasmuch as in that age the knowled"-eof letters and of business was confined almost entirelyto ecclesiastics. But the practice was encouraged by Rome,who was able thus to penetrate the secrets and control thepolicy of governments. Thus all things, great and small, originatedwith the Papacy. The wars that convulsed Europegrew out of the intrigues of Rome. Princes were exaltedto thrones, or hurled from them, according as it suited herinterests. The wealth of the state was employed to debauchconscience, and the arm of its power to punish opinion.*If any of the governments recalcitrated,degrade themselves by doing the vileand refused towork of Rome, shespeedily found means to reduce them to obedience. Sheknew the power of the superstition which she wielded ; sheknew that it placed in her hands the control of the masses,as well as of governments ; and thus she could employ thepeople to overawe the throne, as well as the throne tooppress the people. She had but to issue her interdict,and the ties that bound subjects to their sovereign weredissolved, their oaths of allegiance annulled, and rebellionagainst their persons and government preached as a sacredduty ; so that the unhappy prince had no alternative butto make his peace with Rome, or abdicate. At one timethe Church of Rome has taught the doctrineof the divine* A traveller who visited Rome in 1817, speaking of Cardinal Gonsalez,the minister of the then reigning pontiff, and humane and enlightened beyondtlie ordinary measure of cardinals, says that the High Churcli partywere perpetually beseeching the Pope to remove a minister whose measuresthey represented as calculated to " increase the number of the damnedamong the subjects of the Church." The measures fitted to have thisalarming effect were, the admission of laymen into the administration ofthe state, the abolition of the right of murderers to take sanctuary inchurches, and the abolition of torture. (Rome, Naples, et Paris, en 1817 ;ou Esquisses sur I'Etat actuel de la Society, des McBurs, des Arts, de laLitterature, &c., de ces Villes Celebi-es, p. 122.)