Anecdotes of public men; by John W. Forney.

132 ANECDOTES OF PUBLIC MEN.
embassador to Rome! Is there an American heart that does
not recoil from the utter degradation of the scheme?
"The flood of immigration is sweeping its millions of foreign
Roman Catholic voters over the land. The past is gloomy
enough, the present awfully portentous-but the future is black'with shadows, clouds, and darkness.' This country seems destined to be the grand theatre of Roman Catholic power-not
American Papistry, but the Papistry of Rome, of the Old World,
of Austria, and of the Pope. Shall we grow wise in time, or
shall we surrender our rights without resistance? Shall we
make a stand now, or a Government proposition to unite this
free Republic with absolute Rome? or shall we surrender in anticipation of the day of trial, and ask the Pope, in despair, to
fetter our hands before we strike a blow?
"Sir, if it be written in the black book of fate that this great
Republic is yet to become a dependency of the Court of Rome,
let us not hasten our infamy by any premature weakness, by
any act that shall expedite our downfall or accelerate our bondage. We are now asked to become voluntary agents in enthralling ourselves; we are implored to send an embassador to
Rome, to have our manacles forged in the furnaces of the imperial city, under the special care of the Holy Father, who acknowledges no human authority in matters of government, but
who pleads a divine right to bow down the neck of a man in
the dust and yoke him to the iron car of absolute power.
"Will gentlemen who propose to rivet this religious chain
think of the future? for it is to the future that we are to look
for bonds, fetters, and disfranchisement -that future which in
a few years will expand our population to a hundred millions;
when our wild Indian lands, embracing Oregon and the far West,
shall have been settled by foreign Roman Catholics and their
children, all under the guidance and control of Jesuit leaders, bound to obey their general, the Pope's nuncio, whose headquarters are to be the seat of government, and that seat of