Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1855-05-16
WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM CATHOLICS

w ny nave we nothing 10 feaT IoIh O"
hear much of its fearful power and threatening pr
gress. The alarm is easily raised lor lear Is
raj to unrefecting minds and panic oi'ei sP'eaus
where men pauae not to estimate their resources oil
defence ponerv has age, has long commanded 8
majority of religionists, is more daring 10 its
sumntjons and bold in its denunciations, than the
C other sccts; and therefore presents more
imposing nont to tine alarmed imagination of the
ti,nd and fearful But such frightened Republicans
have failed to estimate more formidable power
than Pspaey, either Roman or Protestant ever
commanded. We mean the power of free opinion:
pew force in modern society, which has culmina
led in these States, and before which every as
sumption of political and religious despotism cow
ers and falls. Every free mind is a Luther to ex-
pose or VoltaiIe to ridicue, or Napoleon to de.
spise her superstitious assumptions and lay bare
her weaknesses. Everyfree press is batterng ram
before which the citadel of all religious tyranny
must yield and fall Every searching science is an
armory of facts and principles that chase as by the
light of day, the clouds of ignorance and servilitY
back TO the oblivion they SO justly merit Every
school-house is g fort more impregnsble than Sc
vastopo, against every alliance of polluted power;
and the atmosphere this new power in the world
creates, reveals the hideousness and weakness of
what has already too long terrified the tinid hearts
of trose who have not been sufficiently candid to
be free. In other words: Catholicism, as an as
sumption over the human conscience, is immovabe,
while innovation and movement are the order of
the day. Its greatest foe is not secret society
formed after the model Of its own Jesutical cabals;
but a progress of society, from which comes the
love of improvement more exciting, and develop
ing power greater, than ali the despotisms of the
world Under the influence of this free power
the forms Of Catholicism are out-grown 1t clings
to the past and will not modify the doctrines it
promulgated in dark times, and the intelligence of
the age stamps them as the fading emblems of ig-
norance 1t forbidS free enquiry, and free enquiry
is the order of the day. 1t holds on to an arsto-
cratcal priesthood, while Republcanism has be-
come the pride ard glory of the people 1t with
holds the scriptures and condemns many books of
science, while the age is a reading one and reads
only the more attentiyely what is arbitrarily for
hidden. 1t lives in the Past and comprehends rot
the discovery of Printing and its attendant pro.
gressiVe agencies, while the people have scarcely
time for the Present in the rush beyond the terrors
of the dark ages. In word, its institutions stand
upon state of society that has passed away.
Politically, Roman Catholicism has been dead
since Napoleon signed its desth-warrant and made
prisoner and a servant of him. whom the super
stitious had considered alike invincible and nalibe
1t stands now in the midst of a still more fearful
revolution; a revolution in religious opinion that
tears the old rags of its dogmas to shreds and scat
tiers them to the winds The world is coming to
see christianity, not patented to Popes, Priests,
Sects or Creeds-a christianity which shines forth
in its essential essence in the life and teachings of
Christ, which embraces the good and virtuous of
all ages and nations, which will break down every
gloomy barrier that holds back the hope of the
world. To this great power of Reason and Reve-
laton, of sound philosophy and practical experience;
to this grand achievement of an advanced cviliza-
tion the desPotic assumptions of the Roman church
stand opposed.
1t is not some midnight plot or imitation of Je-
suitcal power that is the foe Romsnism has to fear
1t may explode in a night and its stencil fill the
nostrils of its duped and foresworn votaries, and
yet all Absolutism will die. Romanism should re-
joice in the existence of such an order, for it will
make it friends. But there is power before which
both Romanism and Nothingism may well
tremble-s power that has already absorbed the
vita.s of the Roman Catholic church, as the Catho-
lie thousands in Germany and the United States
who renouDce the authority of the Pope may ties.
tiiy-a power that made Luther on the one ex-
IRENE and a Napoleon on the other-a power that
has given birth to American Republicanism ard in
spired the hope of freedom throughout the world
and which may be called Human Nature, aroused
to the CONSCIOUSNESS of its rights beginning to re-
spect itself more than the purple of royalty and the
ermne of priestcratt thrsting for free action and
learning that there is something dvner in its Christ
and in itsef-somethng more kindred with its
kind and its God, than in all the forms of Absolu-
tism that ever out the bodies or souls of men.
This IS the great enemy of Popery in all its forms
Protestant or Catholic. This is power ineradica.
bic and its victory all superstition is as certuin
as that human souls are as immortal as their An
thor. Though oppressed for ages, this power has
never died even in the most down-trodden of Cath.
Ole countries Like the central fires of the earth
it moves beneath the mountains of error and ty-
ranny that overload it. only to burst forth and
neaVe tneIn from Inelr DaSe. In the mind OF trI-
ly enlightened christian, having full faith in the
Omnipotence of Truth and the life giving power Of
his Religion it would excite a smile rather than a
fear, to hear men talk of the power of the Catho-
lies. A theology at war with the laws of physical
nature can never stay the progress of society Its
throne is already little more than name. 1t ex-
lists and may exist for some time as an outward In
stitution; but a silent reform spreads in its very
bosom, of which we have unmistaksbe indications,
in every spasmodic and futile effort to regain the
prestige Of its power.
But the worldly-wise Protestant will sometimes
tell us that Catholicism may hope for victory the
ground OF the numerous and bitter Protestant dis
senslons. This prediction has been made as a fear
iul augury Tor at least two hundred years 1t was
made when England was third-rate power. and
Spain was the centre of Empire; before American
Republcanism had existence. AssuredIv. a |
man, with such facts before him, who would con.
tnue TO make it, must have but little claim 70 a
ssgscity that would place his opinions above the
atmosphere of timidity and nervous forebodinc
The truth is, Professionalism has its strength in its
dissensions Had its vast and varied membership
ad incl -.