POPERY-TEMPERANCE.
We give the following extracts from an article published in the Catholic Sentinel-
the Popish organ at Boston. The sentiments here deliberately uttered in relation
to Bible and Temperance Societies, in promotion of the great objects of which
most all sects are heartily engaged to the exclusion of minor differences, are
worthy of notice. The effort of such grossly immoral articles upon an Irish
Catholic population may be anticipated.
It is now right however to state, & as an act of justice towards them,
we do it with pleasure, that the pernicious sentiments advanced in regard to
Temperance, are not the views of all Catholics. One of them, since the appearance
of the article, has come out in one of the Boston papers, and openly denounced
it as vile and pernicious. But still however, we may regard it as expressing
the views of their high Dignitaries in the Church. For it not, why have they
not silenced the Editor, which Bishop Fenwick can do at any moment, if he pleases.
By refusing or neglecting to do it, what are we to infer.
The Recorder.- The allusions which the "clerical traducer,"
who is the wretched spelling book scribe of that vile and vulgar journal, made
to us on Saturday last, in relation to that base and hypocritical confederacy,
the Bible and Temperance Societies, we unhesitatingly pronounce to
have been prompted by the envy of an ignorant mind, and by the malice of a depraved
heart. We fling back, therefore, the groundless imputation of the wretched and
slandering dunce, whose poor, paltry, and pitiful style of diction, shews the
low baseness of his anger and the wild desolation of his mind.
Never, while reason and opinion predominate in our mind, shall we retract the
sentence of reprobation, which we felt called upon to pass, on the majority
of the masked hypocrites who deal in corrupt Bibles, and those abominable temperance
principles, not graduated on the rational scale of social morality. No member
of that pestiferous association of assumed virtue, can have a more invincible
abhorrence to the beastly vice of drunkenness than we; but we would smite a
la Ham, the face of any fanatic fellow of the banditti who should
have the daring insolence to tell us, that we committed a moral crime, by slaking
our thirst with a moderate draught of ale or brandy.- Catholic Sentinel.
The Editor of the Boston Recorder, makes the following remarks upon the above
article.
Here we have Mr. George Pepper's true character, set forth by himself, and
published to the world,- an avowed brandy-drinker and street-brawler, ready
to "smite" people in the streets, like Elias Ham, first constable
of Salem, for the glorious privilege of drinking brandy without rebuke.
Look at this same Bishop Fenwick's religious Editor! Look at the man, who is
employed by the Roman Catholic Priesthood of Boston, to plead their cause! Look
at the moral influence, which Bishop Fenwick and his Priests, by their sanction
of George Pepper and his Sentinel, are exerting upon the Catholic population!
See them, through him, instilling into the minds of the "Catholic poor,"
hatred and contempt for Temperance Societies, and for "the doctrine of
total abstinence from ardent liquors," and encouraging them to "smite,"
as he says he is ready to do, any one who calls brandy-drinking immoral! Mr.
Pepper had been pouring out such sentiments for several weeks. Bishop Fenwick
could have stopped him at any moment, but suffered him to go on. He acts just
as he would act, if he had formed a deliberate plan to attach his people firmly
to himself and his religion, by gratifying their love of rum. |