"Believe us not, Protestants of England and Ireland, for an instant, when you see us pouring forth our liberalisms. When you hear a Catholic orator at some Catholic assemblage declaring solemnly that 'this is the most humiliating day in his life, when he is called upon to defend once more the glorious principle of religious freedom'--(especially if he says any thing about the Emancipation Act and the 'toleration' it _conceded_ to Catholics)--be not too simple in your credulity. These are brave words, but they mean nothing; no, nothing more than the promises of a parliamentary candidate to his constituents on the hustings. _He is not talking Catholicism, but nonsense and Protestantism_; and he will no more act on these notions in different circumstances, than _you_ now act on them yourselves in your treatment of him. You ask, if he were lord in the land, and you were in a minority, if not in numbers yet in power, what would he do to you? That, we say, would entirely depend upon circumstances. If it would benefit the cause of Catholicism, he would tolerate you: if expedient he would imprison you, banish you, fine you; possibly, _he might even hang you_. But be assured of one thing: he would never tolerate you for the sake of the 'glorious principles of civil and religious liberty.'" Again, it is said-- "Why are we so anxious to make the church wear the garb of the world? Why do we stoop, and bow, and cringe before that enemy whom we are sent to conquer and _annihilate_? Why are we ashamed of the deeds of our more consistent forefathers, _who did only what they were bound to do by the first principles of Catholicism_?... Shall I foster that damnable doctrine, that Socinianism, and Calvinism, and Anglicanism, and Judaism, are not every one of them mortal sins, like murder and adultery? Shall I lend my countenance to this unhappy persuasion of my brother, that he is not flying in the face of Almighty God every day that he remains a Protestant? Shall I hold out hopes to him that I will not meddle with his creed if he will not meddle with mine? Shall I lead him to think that religion is a matter for private opinion, and tempt him to forget _that he has no more right to his religious views than he has to my purse, or my house, or my life-blood_? No! Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself, for it is truth itself. We might as rationally maintain that a sane man has a right to believe that two and two do not make four, as this theory of religious liberty. Its impiety is only equalled by its absurdity."