The Portland daily press., 1865-04-11
Mr.. Walkers Sermon on Roman Oatholi-


Rev. Geo. L. Walker delivered an able and
impressive discourse Sunday morning, to
his congregation in State street, upon the de-
signs and stealthy ambition of the Papal pow
er. The pre-announcement of the topic had
drawn from other parishes an audience con-
siderably larger than usual.
Mr.. Walkers characteristic excellencies as
a preacher are earnestness of conviction, mas
sive solidity rather than brilliancy of argu-
mentation, and directness and thoroughness
of application. When he lays himself out on
a subject where he believes wholly and feels
deeply,-and he seems to have no half-bellefs,
and to cherish no faith that does not fire his
soul,-he easily establishes over an audience
the legitimate power of eloquence. Those
who had learned what to expect in one of his
occasional sermons, were not at all disap-
pointed yesterday.
The believer in religious and political free
dom as the heritage of man, cannot help feel
ing that prejudice against this Oldest form
of oppression and tyranny is most whole
some prejudice.
Mr.. Walker showed that the old spirit of
domination over the conscences of men was
still arrogated by that hierarchy, that once en-
forced its behests by tortures and martyrdoms !;
that time had modified its methods but had
not changed its spirit. 1t had recovered from
staggering blows like that delivered by Luz
Their, regained its lost power and vastly en-
larged its communion. A missionary enthu-
siasm was the first token of the reaction that
arrested the progress of the Reformation and
bound all Southern Europe fast and firmly to
the Roman See. So now the starting up of
new sects of enthusiastic propagandists, or
ders of Jesuits, of Franciscans, of Paulists
proselyting everywhere with all the stealthy
and subtle arts which zeal and education and
impudence can compass, must be needed as a
signal of fresh encroachments of the Papacy
in countries consecrated to Christian freedom.
ALREADY the evidences of their success con-
front us everywhere. Sixty years ago in the
United States the Catholics were one in tauen-
ty-seoen of the whole population. Now they
are one in seuen. Churches, cathedrals, mon
asteries. nunneries, seminaries, and other in
stitutions for propagating Romish doctrines,
have increased in still greater proportion.
He cited from the Pope's late Encyclical
Letter, which has been fully endorsed by the
heads of the Catholic community in America,
doctrines condemned as deadly heresies which
the American people have always cherished
as the deer principles for which their ances.
tors shed their blood, and upon which they
have built the Constitution of this great Re-
public. He showed that although there we're
adherents OF that religion who had bravely led
cur armies and fought in our battles, that the
Gnimus of the Catholic hierarchy was hostile
to the cause of the Union and the democratic
ideas it represented, that the Pope himself
had written letter of cheer to the arch trail
tor, JEFF. Dauis, styled, "moSt excellent and IL.
lustrious President" and that the New York
riots were an exhibition of the murderous an
mostly of the ignorant masses of the Cath
Ole community against the men who had dis
tinguished themselves by courageous opposi-
ton to tine slave power. He called Bronson,
himself Catholic, TO testify that the slave
propagandists had been able to maintain their
power over the republic by the aid of the
Catholic vote.
1t was perhaps foreign to the occasion for
the eloquent preacher to propose any prac-
teal methods for counterscting this influence
But il it is true that there is community
among US bound by superstitious devotion to
foreign despotism, incompatible with their
naturalization oath of allegiance, who have
heretofore voted in mass against the progress
OF free ideas and the equal rights of all men
in the State, ought we not, while we can do
it, to provide a counterpoise to this disastrous
influence, by giving the ballot to eight hun
dred thousand black men, whose simple souls
take in the salutary truths, as their impulsiye
hearts do the fervid devotion of Protestant
piety, even with no better instructors than
cruel. mean and hypocritcal masters?