Another placard decrees "that every person in holy orders shall leave the country in less than six days, under pain of arrest and being punished as an enemy to the country." It was also forbidden Catholic teachers to instruct their pupils, if either of the parents had been of the reformed religion; and to will any money to any priest, religious, or for any hospital or religious edifice. This will be sufficient to give our Protestant readers an idea of the liberty of conscience which flourished in Holland. Many endeavor in these times to hide the accusing witness of these acts, and to conceal entirely the manner in which the religion of our forefathers has been overcome; but the day is breaking, the shadows of heresy are fast fading away, and they will not be able to bring them back again. Pius IX., in an allocution in consistory on March 7th, 1853, alluded to the lamentable calamities the church had suffered in the Netherlands. The court of Holland, as it did not desire to acknowledge the odious acts of its former government, sent a letter to the Roman court protesting against these historical allusions. The able minister of the holy see replied to this effrontery in the following language: "The pontifical document only pointed out, in passing, something that is fully told not only by Catholic, but also by Protestant historians, who are interested in giving impartially the true history of the facts." [Footnote 19] [Footnote 19: Note of his eminence, Cardinal Antonelli. "_Ami de la Religion_" t. clxi. No. 5552, July 11, 1853.] {85} There is but one resource for Protestant powers who blush at the intolerance of those who have preceded them, and this is to strike from their laws the unjust proscriptions they have levelled against Catholicism. We owe it to justice to say that, while several Protestant countries, Sweden, for example, retain these unjust enactments, Holland is steadily giving up its former fanaticism, and has fairly entered into the way of religious liberty. VI. The persecution of the sword and the law have demonstrated the cruel and hypocritical character of this heresy, at the same time it has proved the vigor and stability of the church. More than once in these nineteen centuries, it has been attempted to extirpate Catholicism from the heart of a nation, as Russia is trying to do now: We do not know that they have ever succeeded. Even under Mohammedan rule, the church has maintained its existence for more than twelve centuries in Turkey and in Northern Africa; and though it has suffered one continual persecution, and lost innumerable multitudes through martyrdom, it counts to-day in these very countries more than three millions of faithful children. [Footnote 20] In Japan, where missionaries had scarcely time to sow the seeds of Catholic truth before a savage war was waged upon it, its roots are still living, and show after two centuries an unwavering fidelity to the faith. [Footnote 21]