As to our rights, they are equal, if not prior, to all others. Catholics discovered this continent. The feet of Catholics first trod the native soil of these United States. Catholic missionaries first reddened it with their blood for the Christian faith. Catholics fought and bled for our independence, and for its maintenance. Our right to breathe freely the air of heaven, to religious liberty, to equal political rights, and equal privileges with all other American citizens, is indisputable. We ask for these--no more; and with no less will we be content. {193} "__Do manfully__." Can men say what they please against our holy faith, and we not lift up our voices in its defence! It is our joy that our holy faith can never be opposed except by ignorance or calumny. Shall all we hold sacred be caricatured, calumniated, and we sit with folded arms in silence? Shall the literature of the day undermine the faith of our people, and the press caricature and falsify it, and we not employ this most efficient weapon in its defence and for its propagation? A Catholic invented the printing-press. Catholics first used it. Are the children of darkness always to be wiser than the children of light? Shall we not turn their own weapons against them? Let us be up and do manfully. "__Be strengthened__." Our faith is our force. Our forefathers knew how to die for the faith. Can we not live for it? Be strong in our convictions of its truth! Defend it publicly, politically, and privately! We cannot suffer by so doing, for no man is esteemed who is false to his own convictions. Acting thus, we shall be strengthened, and though every one of the enemies of our holy faith were ten thousand, we shall be victors. The hour of death will then be the crowning point of our lives. {194} We shall be able to say, with our great patron St. Paul, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: and, as to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day." [Footnote 79] [Footnote 79: 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.] ---------------------- {195} Sermon XIII. The Supremacy Of St. Peter. (Feast Of Ss. Peter And Paul.) St. Matt. xvi. 18. "__And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this Rock I will build My Church__."