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40
imperfect but equally native, drew mainly upon Saxon
materials--largely in the popular tongue, composed and
transmitted by the people, and hence such Saxon, or
Anglican data, form still not only the basis, but large
portions of the extra Scriptural services in the various
forms of prayer now in use by the different Protestant
sects.
Near one hundred "homilies" of the "fathers" were
translated for the use of the people. The doctrines
of these homilies go to prove for what end they were
selected, and is conclusive testimony that the same doc-
trinal differences existed between Rome and England 500
years before the Reformation, which all Protestant
Churches do insist upon, 300 years after that event. In
fact, from the moment of the establishment of the
Church, by Augustine--long before this period, the
Clergy of the Ancient Saxon Church--the Apostolic
Remnant--protested against the doctrines, the forms,
and the restrictions of the Roman Church, and the
petty kings joined with them in protecting the lives,
the liberties, the property, and the consciences of their
people, from the grasp and tyranny of Rome.
Along, too, with this, the schools of Oxford united to
keep alive, and arouse that spirit which resulted in the
great charters of English liberty. They lectured on and
taught the "Saxon Customs," which are the foundation
of all English law--the almost sacred "lex non scripta"
of the English Constitution--and to the power and jus-
tice of which even William the Conqueror, and Henry
and Stephen, yielded a grudging assent, and which
forced from a reluctant tyrant the "magna charta." It
was, however, the last Saxon, and the first Norman
king, who first began to infuse into these laws something
of the elements of Papal Rome. As a legitimate se-
quence to the rule of a brutal soldierly, and not less
brutal priesthood, there ensued a long, sad era of con-
fusion, ignorance, wrong and corruption in the Church,
and among the people. Bishops of the Holy Church
became warlike Barons, and draggled the cross through
fields of blood--and Barons became rapacious Bishops,
devastating churches and monasteries, and converting
Universtities into barracks for a rude soldiery. Of course
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religious turpitude was aided by the iron and bloody
hand in enforcing civil subjection and repressing all
knowledge. And yet, as you have seen in some sultry
summer's night, the little glow-worm flickering beneath
the lurid darkness--so, under this dread pall of gloom,
there still shone the feeble rays of that pure light the
Apostle brought from the Star of Bethlehem. At times
it flashed into the seared consciences of those who
seemed most remorseless, or hovered over the gateway
of some remote monastery. The stern Baron, in the
terror and agony of death, desired the prayers of the
pure and faithful, and would terminate a life of brutish
ferocity by an act of genial benevolence--or away, in
some deep forest shelter, might be heard the low, sweet
voice of the Dove of Peace, murmuring her gentle melo-
dy with the songs of Galilee, by the pallet of the dying
and repentant sinner. Rome had driven him to rapine
and despair; England wooed him to repentance and
hope. The power of Rome, however, spread wide and
deep over the land; while learning and hopeful patriot-
ism and pure religion were hiding within stony cells or
unnoticed schools. The turbulent and rapacious Kings,
Barons and Bishops, joined to crush out all civil liberty,
and convert it into feudal servitude--to debauch all re-
ligion into buffoonery, and demean all learning into silly
scholasticism. The simplicity of Scriptural faith was
corrupted into fantastic and impious allegory, the lore
of classical philosophy into subtle verbiage; the mendi-
cant preacher howled like a vagabond charlatan from a
cart-tail, the friars of many systems served credulous
sinners with "pardons to and from Rome; Prayer be-
came a mechanical invention, justice to God disappeared
before the Right of Man, and the hope of the race was
turned from Divine Grace to the Roman treasury of
human merit."
I desire, fellow-citizens, here to say, that I am pro-
foundly, philosophically, religiously, with all the faith of
my sould, a protestant against the Roman Catholic Church.
But at the same time I declare that I cannot recognize
one particle of fanaticism or bitterness in my estimate
of historical Papal Rome. I read history, and form my
judgment; I look around me as a christian and citizen,
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