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

FREQUENCY OF PERJURY.4o0Howin the recollection of all. These disclosed a woeful lack ofpublic principle on the part of the very highest servants ofthe crown. The prostration of truth in France is evidentfrom the fact, that scarce any reliance is placed on the wordof any man, from the highest functionary of state, down tothe street porter. Take up the work of any traveller in thepopish states of Europe, and you will find him complainingin every chapter that his utmost circumspection did notprevent his being imposed upon.* Compared with the highprinciples on which British commerce is carried on, and thehonourable character maintained generally by British merchants,how frequent in the papal states of Europe are bankruptcies,frauds in trade, and chicaneries of all kinds !little feared is an oath in popish countries ! How frequentis perjury ! What a difference between the value of evidencein the courts of southern Europe, and its value inthose of northern Germany, and especially in Britain !Whatelse can be expected, where the great fountain of truth issealed, and the eye is turned away from the great tribunalin the heavens, and the conscience of the man is madeamenable to a judge on earth, who often, when an end is tobe gained, absolves him from the obligation of speakingtruth ? In this respect all Roman Catholic countries arealike. The sanctity of oaths is almost universally disregarded.We may cite a few out of innumerable instancesin proof. During the reign of the Republic in Rome, anagent of a Jesuit club waylaid and well-nigh murdered aFrenchman who was obnoxious to him. The case came totrial. The fact that the person who committed the outragewas abroad on that day was deponed to by twenty-six witnesses;nevertheless, those with whom he lived, including acountess, a bishop, an advocate, and a Jesuit, swore that* " I thought the bankors' commission on London drafts exorbitant, theshopkeepers unscrupulous in asking double the amount they finally took,the innkeepers plunderers, and the gentry I saw in gambling-housescheats," (Continental Confessions of a Layman, p. 23 ; Edin. 1848.)