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

—442 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON GOVERNMENT.right of kings, and at another she hais propagated the opinionthat the people are the source of sovereignty, as wasdone in France during the reign of Henry III., who joinedthe Protestants. So long as princes were submissive to theRomish see, their persons were sacred ; the moment theyrevolted, their assassination was recommended as a holyservice, and the crown of glory was held out to the murderer.Rome, to use her own phraseology, laid " the axeat the root of the evil tree,"" with orders "to cut it down.""*Herein lay the real supremacy of Rome,—not in her theoreticheadship, which the kings of Europe acknowledged onlyat times, but in her actual headship, which was founded onthe power of her all-pervading superstition. She filled Europewith darkness, and through that darkness became omnipotent.This made her the mistress of men's minds, andthrough that she became the mistress also of their bodiesand their properties.When her voice sounded through thegloom, men heard it as if it had been the voice of God,trembled, and obeyed.Another enormous abuse grew out of the sacerdotal governmentof Rome, namely, the maxim that princes are* The instances of Clement and Ravaillac are well known. The formerassasshiated Henry III. in his own ajiartment, and the latter stabbedHenry the Great in the streets of Paris in open day. In both cases theassassinations were recommended by the poi>isli clergy beforehand as amost meritorious service ; when done, applauded from the pulpit, andcompared to tlte most heroic acts in the sacred record ; and images andpictures of the regicides exhibited in chapels, and placed on altars, andtreated as canonized saints. The Jesuits, it is said, have a solemn form ofconsecration in the case of regicides.Bathing the sword with which thedeed is to be done with holy water, :— they put it into his hand, and pronouncethe following exorcism " Come, ye cherubims, ye seraphims,thrones, and powers ! Come, ye holy angels, and fill up this blessed vesselwith an immortal glory ! And Thou, O God ! who art terrible and invincible,and hast inspired him, in prayer and meditation, to kill the tyrantand heretic, to give his crown to a Catholic king, comfort, we beseechThee, the heart of him we have consecrated to this office : strengthen hisarm, that he may execute his enterprise," &c.