“A Chained Tiger, a Tiger Still.”
THE tolerant spirit manifested by the Roman Catholics in this country, until lately, has been supposed by many to show a change of principle; and when it has been suggested by those who knew more of the intolerant spirit of the system that “a chained tiger was a tiger still,” the reply has been made that the spirit of our institutions and our system of government were such that even Roman Catholicism could not help but be molded by it. This is possibly true, so far as the more intelligent classes are concerned. Their well-known treatment, however, of the Orangemen in New York City demonstrated that the system is unchanged, and that the lower classes of Catholics, which the hierarchy educates and governs, are ready, whenever it can safely be done, for the darkest deeds of the Spanish Inquisition. In proof of this, we need only refer to the scenes which were enacted a few weeks ago in Centralia, Columbia County, Pa., and fully described in Harper's Weekly, April 13, and in other Eastern papers. The following account we clip from the Christian Instructor, of Philadelphia, April 27. On reading it, we could not refrain asking ourselves the question, Is it possible that such scenes can be enacted in this nineteenth century, in the United States of America? Are we not nursing a system that will yet rob us of our liberties? The unchanged spirit of the Romish system has manifested itself in a most startling form by positive acts of persecution in our own State. In Centralia, a pleasant town in Columbia County, in the midst of a coal mining district, the mass of the population are Roman Catholics, many of whom are of the lowest class. For some time past they have shown a spirit of increasing hostility to all who were not within the pale of their Church; but no serious outbreak or violence was attempted until within the last few months. Near the first of last month, a band of them came to the school-house where the public school was being held, seized the teacher, who was a Protestant, that had in some way offended them, cut off his ears, and nailed them to his desk, and then, though he was removed to his house,203they surrounded it with the avowed determination to burn it, and declared they would take his life even should he escape them at that time. In this case they were dispersed at the time by two of their priests coming on the ground with whips, and literally driving them away. A few nights afterward they came at three o'clock in the morning to the house of a widow, who had formerly been a Roman Catholic, but, having abjured that faith some months ago, was confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and had her children attend its Sabbath-School. She was waited on by various Roman Catholic parties, and urged to return to the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman priest sent for her to come to his chapel, and word was taken her that if she did not immediately leave Protestantism, and renew her connection with the Church of Rome, she would go to perdition, where her husband and all who died out of the Roman Catholic Church are in torment. She refused to return, or to take her children from the Protestant school. On the above night, the night of 26th ult., some of the men came to her house, where she and her four children were. Her brother-in-law, an aged man with only one leg, was boarding with her, as he had long been. These men attacked this defenceless household, beat both the woman and the crippled man, until their lives were despaired of, and did as much damage as possible to the furniture and household goods. The next day the beaten and suffering family were removed with difficulty to the railway trains, and were forced, under the severest threats, to depart from the place, leaving all their effects behind them. During the time of this terrible persecution, no less than fourteen Protestant families have been compelled, as is reported to us, to remove from the town, and threats are thickly abroad that no Protestant shall have an abiding in the place. When we asked of some of the sufferers who have been with us, Why was not the protection of law invoked? the reply was, The police and other officers of the place are all Roman Catholics or are dependent upon Roman Catholic votes, and would do nothing. Cries of suffering and murder in the fearful time of danger were unheard. Six dwelling houses and the school-house were burned down, and not a public hand was lifted, we are told, either to put out the fire or save the property. The bloody and devastating cries of St. Bartholomew's day, “Down with the Protestants!” were practically heard in this town; and boasted as is our chartered right to toleration, protection, and personal security, not a hand was raised by the officers of law to see that the innocent and defenceless were helped in their hour of terrible need. Is this state of things to be allowed? If it may be in Centralia, why may it not be in any other place where the Romish Church has the power, as in this case she shows she still has the will, to persecute and destroy? In the statements which we have here made, we have simply drawn on the facts that were declared to us by some of the immediate sufferers who were residents in Centralia, but having been forced to flee, are now with friends, or in places of employment in this city and vicinity. Is there not a call in it all for the people of this country to realize how truly the church of Rome is unchanged, and that if it is ever in her power she will curse with her intolerance and hate the very land that, by its free institutions and its open arms for all, fostered and warmed her into new life and growth? Never should the warning cry of the devoted Lafayette be forgotten in this land, “That if these United States ever lose their civil liberty and their free institutions, it will be by the hands of the Jesuits.”—Christian Press.