08-25-2026, 07:05 AM
X. Of Those Persecutions Whereof Protestants Claim to Have Been the Victims.
— Protestants will always persecute when they are the majority; but if they happen to be in the minority they'll whine out doleful tunes of being persecuted. To hear them they are even this day persecuted in France and in Rome — a charge so strange that we must establish it clearly before we refute it.
Well, then, hear what Mr. Le Savoureux, Protestant minister of Limoges, said at a public meeting in Queen Street, Edinburgh, 1857: "I have good news to give you from motherland (France). The faint light of the Gospel is advancing. Our fathers allowed Protestantism to become extinguished, in spite of the struggle of our good Huguenots, but the ancient national churches are getting up. Such nations as France, Spain, etc., under the sway of Rome are dead nations. Romanism is the enemy of moral good. The commune of Villefavard has become Protestant; we have swept the Saints out of the Church. We have established ten schools in the department of Allier, and, had we money, we Protestants would have attained a majority. But since the coup-d'état a man appeared — that Napoleon — who has allied himself with Catholic ideas, has closed our schools, and summoned us before the courts of justice. We are now hidden in the woods! Yet the progress continues. At Limoges the work was broken up by a railroad. Had we been Romans the administration would not have disturbed us!" And the Limousin clerk winds up by begging God to grant them liberty!
The Paris correspondent of the "London Times" gives even a more melancholy picture of the heart-rending situation of Protestantism in France. Poor ministers thrown into jail; churches and schools wantonly disbanded.
Hear these truthful correspondents: "Yes, we have seen whole populations taking refuge in forests, as their fathers did before them, in order to practise their religion. To escape the intrusions of the police they had to keep watchers to warn them in time. Hymns were sung only at intervals, prayers and sermons were broken up, and when the officers arrived they only saw men, women, and children picking up acorns, or climbing up trees." (Times, Jan. 5, 1858.)
It is well known how these ridiculous assertions, so often and so impudently repeated, called forth, at last, a rejoinder from the "Moniteur," denying their truth with indignation and contempt. True, not all the Protestants of France push so far the mania of complaining, whether right or wrong; yet the majority among them seem to find a pleasure in calling and believing themselves injured, interfered with in both their rights and their interests, balked in their movements — in a word, persecuted. In their writings, in their journals, in their sermons, and above all in the courts of justice, they forever complain of being the victims of persecution.
But what victims, great God! Would to Heaven the Catholics of Ireland and Sweden were victims like them! Never was a creed more free and more favored than Protestantism is in France this day. Count them: a late census set their number at several hundred thousand in thirty-six millions of people. Count the offices they fill from the highest to the lowest. Search the public accounts and compare the pay of Protestant ministers with the compensation given to the Catholic clergy. They are free, not only among their own people but even among the Catholics, to employ the most active propagandism, free to defend themselves and free to attack others. See the relation on which their many temples and schools stand to their number in Paris — thirteen thousand, after official reports. Remember that these schools, increasing every day in number, in the very centre of wards almost exclusively Catholic, are filled for the most with the children of the poor enticed away from the Church. Remember, also, that the works of Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde (it is enough to quote this work for all) is sold with impunity by all their booksellers. Then, lay your hand on your breast, and tell me, reader, can they really call themselves persecuted in France? Indeed, their complaints are unjust, and very awkward in their ingratitude.*
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*Galignani* of Paris, in its issue of Saturday, June 20, 1867, announces for the next day thirteen places open to Protestant worship: "Forney's Letters from Europe." Letter xxv. — Phila.: Peterson Bros., 1867. Thus, even in Rome, more liberty is allowed to Protestants than Catholics ever obtained in purely Protestant countries. At what price could a Catholic priest officiate in England under Elizabeth? Could a priest even make his appearance in Geneva when Calvin ruled there? And was not William Penn called to an account because he allowed a mass-house in Philadelphia?
(Continuing from the previous chapter) — . . . did not the Protestants of Maryland put their heels on the neck of the Catholics, who had been their greatest benefactors, as soon as they got the upper hand? . . . And so forever. Now look to Rome. Protestants go and come; some of them civil, some very impertinent and insulting. The Pope does not mind them. He even allows them to meet at their ambassadors' houses and have service. Point to such privileges in a thorough Protestant city: and if the Pope does not allow a public meeting-house to be opened in the centre of Rome, nobody can blame him, because, the Pope being the Depository of Divine Truth, he cannot conscientiously countenance the manifestations of what is opposed to that truth. Yet he allows them to meet extra muros. Rome is the property of the Catholic world, not of Italy, and the Pope of Rome holds it in trust for the Catholic community scattered all over the world.
And did not the Protestants of Maryland put their heels on the neck of the Catholics, who had been their greatest benefactors, as soon as they got the upper hand? . . . And so forever. Now look to Rome. Protestants go and come; some of them civil, some very impertinent and insulting. The Pope does not mind them. He even allows them to meet at their ambassadors' houses and have service. Point to such privileges in a thorough Protestant city: and if the Pope does not allow a public meeting-house to be opened in the centre of Rome, nobody can blame him, because, the Pope being the Depository of Divine Truth, he cannot conscientiously countenance the manifestations of what is opposed to that truth. Yet he allows them to meet extra muros. Rome is the property of the Catholic world, not of Italy, and the Pope of Rome holds it in trust for the Catholic community scattered all over the world.
— Protestants will always persecute when they are the majority; but if they happen to be in the minority they'll whine out doleful tunes of being persecuted. To hear them they are even this day persecuted in France and in Rome — a charge so strange that we must establish it clearly before we refute it.
Well, then, hear what Mr. Le Savoureux, Protestant minister of Limoges, said at a public meeting in Queen Street, Edinburgh, 1857: "I have good news to give you from motherland (France). The faint light of the Gospel is advancing. Our fathers allowed Protestantism to become extinguished, in spite of the struggle of our good Huguenots, but the ancient national churches are getting up. Such nations as France, Spain, etc., under the sway of Rome are dead nations. Romanism is the enemy of moral good. The commune of Villefavard has become Protestant; we have swept the Saints out of the Church. We have established ten schools in the department of Allier, and, had we money, we Protestants would have attained a majority. But since the coup-d'état a man appeared — that Napoleon — who has allied himself with Catholic ideas, has closed our schools, and summoned us before the courts of justice. We are now hidden in the woods! Yet the progress continues. At Limoges the work was broken up by a railroad. Had we been Romans the administration would not have disturbed us!" And the Limousin clerk winds up by begging God to grant them liberty!
The Paris correspondent of the "London Times" gives even a more melancholy picture of the heart-rending situation of Protestantism in France. Poor ministers thrown into jail; churches and schools wantonly disbanded.
Hear these truthful correspondents: "Yes, we have seen whole populations taking refuge in forests, as their fathers did before them, in order to practise their religion. To escape the intrusions of the police they had to keep watchers to warn them in time. Hymns were sung only at intervals, prayers and sermons were broken up, and when the officers arrived they only saw men, women, and children picking up acorns, or climbing up trees." (Times, Jan. 5, 1858.)
It is well known how these ridiculous assertions, so often and so impudently repeated, called forth, at last, a rejoinder from the "Moniteur," denying their truth with indignation and contempt. True, not all the Protestants of France push so far the mania of complaining, whether right or wrong; yet the majority among them seem to find a pleasure in calling and believing themselves injured, interfered with in both their rights and their interests, balked in their movements — in a word, persecuted. In their writings, in their journals, in their sermons, and above all in the courts of justice, they forever complain of being the victims of persecution.
But what victims, great God! Would to Heaven the Catholics of Ireland and Sweden were victims like them! Never was a creed more free and more favored than Protestantism is in France this day. Count them: a late census set their number at several hundred thousand in thirty-six millions of people. Count the offices they fill from the highest to the lowest. Search the public accounts and compare the pay of Protestant ministers with the compensation given to the Catholic clergy. They are free, not only among their own people but even among the Catholics, to employ the most active propagandism, free to defend themselves and free to attack others. See the relation on which their many temples and schools stand to their number in Paris — thirteen thousand, after official reports. Remember that these schools, increasing every day in number, in the very centre of wards almost exclusively Catholic, are filled for the most with the children of the poor enticed away from the Church. Remember, also, that the works of Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde (it is enough to quote this work for all) is sold with impunity by all their booksellers. Then, lay your hand on your breast, and tell me, reader, can they really call themselves persecuted in France? Indeed, their complaints are unjust, and very awkward in their ingratitude.*
---
*Galignani* of Paris, in its issue of Saturday, June 20, 1867, announces for the next day thirteen places open to Protestant worship: "Forney's Letters from Europe." Letter xxv. — Phila.: Peterson Bros., 1867. Thus, even in Rome, more liberty is allowed to Protestants than Catholics ever obtained in purely Protestant countries. At what price could a Catholic priest officiate in England under Elizabeth? Could a priest even make his appearance in Geneva when Calvin ruled there? And was not William Penn called to an account because he allowed a mass-house in Philadelphia?
(Continuing from the previous chapter) — . . . did not the Protestants of Maryland put their heels on the neck of the Catholics, who had been their greatest benefactors, as soon as they got the upper hand? . . . And so forever. Now look to Rome. Protestants go and come; some of them civil, some very impertinent and insulting. The Pope does not mind them. He even allows them to meet at their ambassadors' houses and have service. Point to such privileges in a thorough Protestant city: and if the Pope does not allow a public meeting-house to be opened in the centre of Rome, nobody can blame him, because, the Pope being the Depository of Divine Truth, he cannot conscientiously countenance the manifestations of what is opposed to that truth. Yet he allows them to meet extra muros. Rome is the property of the Catholic world, not of Italy, and the Pope of Rome holds it in trust for the Catholic community scattered all over the world.
And did not the Protestants of Maryland put their heels on the neck of the Catholics, who had been their greatest benefactors, as soon as they got the upper hand? . . . And so forever. Now look to Rome. Protestants go and come; some of them civil, some very impertinent and insulting. The Pope does not mind them. He even allows them to meet at their ambassadors' houses and have service. Point to such privileges in a thorough Protestant city: and if the Pope does not allow a public meeting-house to be opened in the centre of Rome, nobody can blame him, because, the Pope being the Depository of Divine Truth, he cannot conscientiously countenance the manifestations of what is opposed to that truth. Yet he allows them to meet extra muros. Rome is the property of the Catholic world, not of Italy, and the Pope of Rome holds it in trust for the Catholic community scattered all over the world.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre