University of Virginia Library

Chapter XVII.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD: OR ANCIENT AND
MODERN IDOLATRY.

I WAS ordained a priest of Rome in the Cathedral of Quebec,
on the 21st of September, 1833, by the Right Reverend
Sinai, first Archbishop of Canada. No words can express the
solemnity of my thoughts, the superhuman nature of my aspirations,
when the delegate of the Pope, imposing his hands on my
head, gave me the power of converting a wafer into the
real substantial body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ!
The bright illusion of Eve, as the deceiver told her "Ye shall
be as gods," was child's play compared with what I felt when,
assured by the infallible voice of my Church that I was not only
on equal terms with my Saviour and God, but I was in reality
above Him! and that hereafter I would not only command, but
create Him!!

The aspirations to power and glory which had been such a
terrible temptation in Lucifer were becoming a reality in me!
I had received the power of commanding God, not in a spiritual
and mystical, but in a real, personal and most irresistible way.

With my heart full of an inexpressible joy and gratitude to
God, and with all the faculties of my soul raised to exaltation, I
withdrew from the feet of the pontiff to my oratory, where I
passed the rest of the day in meditation on the great things
which my God had wrought in me.

I had, at last attained the top of that power and holiness
which my Church had invited me to consider from my infancy.
as the most glorious gift which God had ever given to man!
The dignity which I had just received was above all the
dignities and the thrones of this world. The holy character of

the PRIESTHOOD had been impressed on my soul, with the
blood of Christ, as an imperishable and celestial glory. Nothing
could ever take it away from me in time or eternity. I was to
be a priest of my God forever and ever. Not only had Christ
let His divine and priestly nature fall on my shoulders, but He
had so perfectly associated me with Himself as the great and
eternal Sacrificator, that I was to renew, every day of my life,
His atoning SACRIFICE! At my bidding, the only and eternally
begotten Son of my God was now to come into my hands in
person! The same Christ who sits at the right hand of the
Father was to come down every day into my breast, to unite
His flesh to my flesh, His blood to my blood, His divine soul to
my poor sinful soul, in order to walk, work and live in me and
with me in the most perfect unity and intimacy!

I passed the whole day and the greater part of the night in
contemplating the superhuman honors and dignities which my
beloved Church had conferred on me. Many times I fell on
my knees to thank God for His mercies towards me, and I could
hardly speak to Him except with tears of joy and gratitude. I
often repeated the words of the Holy Virgin Mary: "My soul
doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my
Saviour."

The privileges granted to me were of a more substantial
kind than those bestowed upon Mary. She had been obeyed
by Christ only when He was a child. He had to obey me now,
although He was in the full possession of His eternal glory!

In the presence of God and His angels, I promised to live a
holy life as a token of my gratitude to Him. I said to my lips
and my tongue, "Be holy now; for you will not only speak to
your God: you will give Him a new birth every day!" I said
to my heart, "Be holy and pure now; for you will bear every
day the Holy of Holies." To my soul I said, "Be holy now;
for you will henceforth be most intimately and personally united
to Christ Jesus. You will be fed with the body, blood, soul and
divinity of Him before whom the angels do not find themselves
pure enough!"

Looking on my table, where my pipe, filled with tobacco,

and my snuff-box were lying, I said: "Impure and noxious
weeds, you will no more defile me! I am the priest of the
Almighty. It is beneath my dignity to touch you any more!"
and opening the window I threw them into the street, never to
make use of them again.

On the 21st of September, 1833, I had thus been raised to
the priesthood; but I had not yet made use of the divine powers
with which I had been invested. The next day I was to say
my first Mass, and work that incomparable miracle which the
Church of Rome calls Transubstantiation.

As I have already said, I had passed the greater part of the
night between the 21st and 22nd in meditation and thanksgivings.
On the morning of the 22nd, long before the dawn of
day, I was dressed and on my knees. This was to be the most
holy and glorious day of my life! Raised the day before, to
a dignity which was above the kingdoms and empires of the
world, I was now for the first time, to work a miracle at the
altar which no angel or seraph could do.

At my bidding Christ was to receive a new existence! The
miracle wrought by Joshua, when he commanded the sun and
moon to stop, on the bloody plain of Gibeon, was nothing compared
to the miracle that I was to perform that day. When the
eternal Son of God would be in my hands, I was to present
myself at the throne of mercy, with that expiatory victim of the
sins of the world pay the debt, not only of my guilty soul, but
of all those for whom I should speak? The ineffable sacrifice
of Calvary was to be renewed by me that day with the utmost
perfection!

When the bell rang to tell me that the hour was come to
clothe myself with the golden priestly robes and go to the altar,
my heart beat with such a rapidity that I came very near
fainting. The holiness of the action I was to do, the infinite
greatness of the sacrifice I was about to make, the divine victim
I was to hold in my hands and present to God the Father! the
wonderful miracle I was to perform, filled my soul and my
heart with such sentiments of terror, joy and awe, that I was
trembling from head to foot; and if very kind friends, among

whom was the venerable secretary of the Archbishop of Quebec,
now the Grand Vicar Cazault, had not been there to help and
encourage me, I think I would not have dared to ascend the
steps of the altar.

It is not an easy thing to go through all the ceremonies of a
mass. There are more than one hundred different ceremonies
and positions of the body, which must be observed, with the
utmost perfection. To omit one of them willingly, or through
a culpable neglect or ignorance, is eternal damnation. But
thanks to a dozen exercises through which I had gone the
previous week, and thanks be to the kind friends who helped
and guided me, I went through the performances of that first
mass much more easily than I expected. It lasted about an
hour. But when it was over, I was really exhausted by the
effort made to keep my mind and heart in unison with the
infinite greatness of the mysteries accomplished by me.

To make one's self believe that he can convert a piece of
bread into God requires such a supreme effort of the will, and
complete annihilation of intelligence, that the state of the soul,
after the effort is over, is more like death than life.

I had really persuaded myself that I had done the most holy
and sublime action of my life, when, in fact I had been guilty
of the most outrageous act of idolatry! My eyes, my hands and
lips, my mouth and tongue, and all my senses, as well as the
faculties of my intelligence, were telling me that what I had
seen, touched, eaten, was nothing but a wafer; but the voices of
the Pope and his Church were telling me that it was the real
body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. I had persuaded
myself that the voices of my senses and intelligence were the
voices of Satan, and that the deceitful voice of the Pope was the
voice of the God of Truth! Every priest of Rome has to come
to that strange degree of folly and perversity, every day of his
life, to remain a priest of Rome.

The great imposture taught under the modern word TRANSUBSTANTIATION,
when divested of the glare which Rome, by
his sorceries, throws around it, is soon seen to be what it is—a
most impious and idolatrous doctrine.

"I must carry the `good god' to-morrow to a sick man,"
says the priest to his servant girl. It plain French: "Je dois
porter le `Bon Dieu' demain a un malade, dit le praitre a sa
servante; mais il n'y en a plus dans le tabernacle." "But there
are no more in the tabernacle. Make some small cakes,
that I may consecrate them to-morrow." And the obedient
domestic takes some wheat flour, for no other kind of flour is fit
to make the god of the Pope. A mixture of any other kind
would make the miracle of "transubstantiation" a great fuilure.
The servant girl accordingly takes the dough, and bakes it
between two heated irons, on which are graven the following
figures, †/C. H. S. When the whole is well baked, she takes her
scissors and cuts those wafers, which are about four or five
inches large, into smaller ones of the size of an inch, and
respectfully hands them over to the priest.

The next morning the priest takes the newly-baked wafers
to the altar, and changes them into the body, blood, soul and
divinity of Jesus Christ. It was one of those wafers that I had
taken to the altar in that solemn hour of my first mass, and
which I had turned into my Saviour by the five magical words
—Hoc est enim corpus meum!

What was the difference between the incredible folly of
Aaron on the day of his apostasy in the wilderness, and the
action I had done when I worshipped the god whom I made
myself, and got my friends to worship? Where, I ask, is the
difference between the adoration of the calf-god of Aaron and
the wafer-god which I had made on the 22nd September, 1833.
The only difference was, that the idolatry of Aaron lasted but
one day, while the idolatry in which I lived lasted a quarter of
a century, and has been perpetuated in the Church of Rome for
more than a thousand years.

What has the Church of Rome done by giving up the words
of Christ, "Do this in remembrance of me," and substituting
her dogma of Transubstantiation? She has brought the world
back to the old heathenism. The priest of Rome worships a
Saviour called Christ. Yes; but that Christ is not the Christ of
the gospel. It is a false and newly-invented Christ whom the

Popes have smuggled from the Pantheon of Rome, and sacrilegiously
called by the adorable name of our Saviour Jesus
Christ.

I have often been asked: "Was it possible that you sincerely
believed that the wafer could be changed into God by you?"
And, "Have you really worshipped that wafer as your Saviour?"

To my shame, and to the shame of poor humanity, I must
say "Yes." I believed as sincerely as every Roman Catholic
priest is bound to believe it, that I was creating my own Saviour-God
every morning by the assumed consecration of the wafer;
and I was saying to the people, as I presented it to them, "Ecce
agnus Dei"—"This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the
sins of the world; let us adore him"—prostrating myself on
my knees, I was adoring the God made by myself, with the help
of my servant; and all the people prostrated themselves to adore
the newly-made god!

I must confess, further, that though I was bound to believe
in the existence of Christ in heaven, and was invited by my
Church to worship Him as my Saviour and my God, I had, as
every Roman Catholic has, more confidence, faith and love
towards the Christ which I had created with a few words of my
lips, than towards the Christ of heaven.

My Church told me, every day of my life, and I had to
believe and preach it, that though the Christ of heaven was my
Saviour, He was angry against me on account of my sins; that
He was constantly disposed to punish me according to His
terrible justice; that He was armed with lightning and thunder
to crush me; and that, were it not for His mother, who day and
night was interceding for me, I should be cast into that hell
which my sins had so richly deserved. All the theologians,
with St. Liguori at their head, whose writings I was earnestly
studying, and which had received the approbation of infallible
popes, persuaded me that it was Mary whom I had to thank
and bless, if I had not yet been punished as I deserved. Not
only had I to believe this doctrine, but I had to preach it to the
people. The result was for me, as it is for every Roman
Catholic, that my heart was really chilled, and I was filled with

terror every time I looked to the Christ of heaven through the
lights and teachings of my Church. He could not, as I believed,
look to me except with an angry face; He could not stretch out
His hand towards me except to crush me, unless His merciful
mother or some other mighty saint interposed their saving supplications
to appease His just indignation. When I was praying
to that Christ of the Church of Rome, my mind was constantly
perplexed about the choice I should make of some powerful
protector, whose influence could get me a favorable hearing
from my irritated Saviour.

Besides this, I was told, and I had to believe it, that the
Christ of heaven was a mighty monarch, a most glorious king,
surrounded by innumerable hosts of servants, officers and friends,
and that, as it would not do for a poor rebel to present himself
before his irritated King to get his pardon, but he must address
himself to some of His most influential courtiers, or to His
beloved mother, to whom nothing can be refused, that they
might plead his cause; so I sincerely believed that it was better
for me not to speak myself to Jesus Christ, but to look for some
one who would speak for me.

But there would be no such terrors or fears in my heart when I
approached the Saviour whom I had created myself! Such an
humble and defenceless Saviour, surely, had no thunder in His
hands to punish His enemies. He could have no angry looks
for me. He was my friend, as well as the work of my hands.
There was nothing in Him which could inspire me with any
fear. Had I not brought Him down from heaven? And had
He not come into my hands that He might hear, bless and
forgive me?—that He might be nearer to me, and I nearer to
Him?

When I was in His presence, in that solitary church, there
was no need of officers, of courtiers, of mothers to speak to Him
for me. He was no longer there a mighty monarch, an angry
king, who could be approached only by the great officers of His
court; He was now the rebuked of the world, the humble and
defenceless Saviour of the manger, the forsaken Jesus of Calvary,
the forgotten Christ of Gethsemane.

No words can give any idea of the pleasure I used to feel
when, alone, prostrated before the Christ whom I had made at
the morning mass, I poured out my heart at His feet. It is
impossible for those who have not lived under those terrible
illusions to understand with what confidence I spoke to the
Christ who was then before me, bound by the ties of His love
for me! How many times, in the colder days of winter, in
churches which had never seen any fire, with an atmosphere
15 degrees below zero, had I passed whole hours alone, in
adoration of the Saviour whom I had made only a few hours
before! How often have I looked with silent admiration to the
Divine Person who was there alone, passing the long hours of
the day and night, rebuked and forsaken, that I might have an
opportunity of approaching Him, and of speaking to Him as a
friend to his friend, as a repenting sinner to his merciful Saviour.
My faith—I should rather say my awful delusion, was then so
complete that I scarcely felt the biting of the cold! I may
say with truth, that the happiest hours I ever had, during the
long years of darkness into which the Church of Rome had
plunged me, were the hours which I passed in adoring the
Christ whom I had made with my own lips. And every priest
of Rome would make the same declaration, were they questioned
on the subject.

It is a similar principle of monstrous faith that leads widows
in India to leap with cries of joy into the fire which will burn
them into ashes with the bodies of their deceased husbands.
Their priests have assured them that such a sacrifice will secure
eternal happiness to themselves and their departed husbands.

In fact, the Roman Catholics have no other Saviour to
whom they can betake themselves than the one made by the
consecration of the wafer. He is the only Saviour who is not
angry with them, and who does not require the mediation of
virgins and saints to appease His wrath. This is the reason why
Roman Catholic churches are so well filled by the poor blind
Roman Catholics. See how they rush to the foot of their
altars at almost every hour of the day, sometimes long before
the dawn! Go to some of their churches, even on a rainy and

stormy morning, and you will see crowds of worshippers, of
every age and from every grade of society, braving the storm
and the rain, walking through the mud to pass an hour at the
foot of their tabernacles!

How is it that the Roman Catholics, alone, offer such a
spectacle to the civilized world? The reason is very simple
and plain. Every soul years for a God to whom it can speak,
and who will hear its supplications with a merciful heart, and
who will wipe away her penitential tears. Just as the flowers
of our gardens turn naturally towards the sun which gives them
their color, their fragrance and their life, so every soul wants a
Saviour who is not angry but merciful towards those who come
unto Him—A Saviour who will say to the weary and heavy laden:
"Come unto me, and I will give you rest."—A God, in fine, who
is not armed with Thunder and Lightning, and does not require
to be approached only by saints, virgins and martyrs; but who,
through his son Jesus, is the real, the true and the only friend of
Sinners.

When the people think that there is such a God,—such a
loving Saviour to be found in the tabernacle, it is but natural
that they should brave the storms and the rains, to worship at
his feet, to receive the pardon of their sins.

The children of light, the disciples of the gospel, who protest
against the errors of Rome, know that their Heavenly Father is
everywhere ready to hear, forgive and help them. They know
that it is no more "at Jerusalem, nor on this or that mountain,"
or at church that God wants to be worshipped (John iv. 21.)
They know that their Saviour liveth, and is everywhere ready to
hear those who invoke His name; that He is no more in that
desert, or in that secret chamber (Matt. xxiv.) They know
that He is everywhere—that He is ever near to those who look
to his bleeding wounds and want to wash their robes in His
blood. They find Jesus in their most secret closets when they
enter them to pray;—they meet Him and converse with Him
when in the fields, behind the counter, traveling on railroads or
steamers—everywhere they meet with Him, and speak to Him
as friend to friend.

It is not so with the followers of the Pope. They are told
contrary to the gospel (Matt. xxiv. 22.), that Christ is in this
Church—in that secret chamber or tabernacle! Cruelly deceived
by their priests, they run, they brave the storms to go as near as
possible to that place where their merciful Christ lives. They go
to the Christ who will give them a hearty welcome, who will
listen to their humble prayers, and be compassionate to their tears
of repentance.

Let Protestants cease to admire poor deluded Roman Catholics
who dare the storm and go to church even before the dawn of
day. This devotion, which so dazzles them, should excite
compassion, and not admiration; for it is the logical result of the
most awful spiritual darkness. It is the offspring of the greatest
imposture the world has ever seen, it is the natural consequence
of the belief that the priest of Rome can create Christ and God
by the consecration of a wafer, and keep Him in a secret
chamber.

The Egyptians worshipped God under the form of crocodiles
and calves: The Greeks made their gods of marble or of gold:
The Persian made the sun his god: The Hottentots make their
gods with whale-bone, and go far through the storms to adore
them: The Church of Rome makes her god out of a piece of
bread! Is this not idolarty?

From the year 1833, to the day that God in his mercy opened
my eyes, my servant had used more than a bushel of wheat flour,
to make the little cakes which I had to convert into the Christ
of the mass. Some of these I ate; others I carried about with
me for the sick; and others I placed in the tabernacle for the
adoration of the people.

I am often asked:—"How is it that you could be guilty of
such a gross act of idolatry?" My only answer is the answer
of the blind man of the gospel: "I know not, only this one
thing I know, that I was blind, and could not see. But Jesus has
touched my eyes and now I see." (John ix. ii).