The Crimes of Alexander Borgia/Preface
PREFACE.
I wish every reader of this book to know my purpose in writing it. My object must not be misunderstood. I regard the church of Rome as a thousand-headed hydra, each head nurtured to its present fulness by a thousand crimes! I look upon it as a festering hell on earth, beneath whose seeming piety and sanctimoniousness are enacted scenes of blood and cruelty more revolting than any ever witnessed in the ORIGINAL Pandemonium! I regard it as a hideous reptile, that has attained its present massive proportions through the sufferance of those who should have crushed it in the germ, and only waits for an auspicious hour to unmask in all its deformity, yet with a vigor and power that shall shake worlds from their foundations! I look upon it as a terrible guillotine, whose blade is every moment growing wider and wider, sharper and sharper, and is now only suspended in silence and darkness, that it may grow large enough to destroy Liberty and Protestantism at one blow!
And such a damnable compound of all that is hellish, atrocious, gigantic, and terribly significant of a bloody future, is the Church of Rome!
The time has come when all Americans who love their country must awaken to the nature of the serpents they are nourishing in their bosoms, or see the heritage secured by the blood of their forefathers pass out of their hands forever! As time rolls on, the tide of Papal aggression sets higher and higher, and wounded Liberty flies shrieking back to the borders! Standing thus upon the shores of the present, and looking back to what have been the achievements of Jesuitical cunning and power, the mind cannot grasp at anything that seems too bold and hazardous for the emissaries of the church of Rome to accomplish. Emerging from the gloom and desolation of the dark ages,—that period when a mental night seemed about to enclose all mankind as in one living grave,—the principles of Catholicism have gone on spreading and increasing for centuries, though always directly antagonistical to civilization, enlightenment, the elevation of the masses, and civil and political liberty. These principles find their vitality in the cunning and steady perseverance of an overwhelming priesthood, whose every action is governed by a desire to swell the resources of "the church," and make all means subservient to this single end. They have planted their banner upon nearly every portion of the globe,—always establishing it in blood, and sustaining it in tyranny and oppression,—and wherever their sway predominates, there will the people be found existing under a curse like that of Cain! Spain, Mexico, the greater portion of South America, and even Rome itself, are all living examples of the deadly evils that are born of Papal supremacy. Ignorance, superstition, and inertness, are the leading characteristics of a people ruled by the priesthood; and hence their value to themselves and their God is lost in the bonds of servility that strip them of their manhood, and make them but automatons that are entirely subject to their master minds—the Jesuits!
But by such means—the exercise of the assuming knowledge of the few over the submissive ignorance of the many—has the church of Rome built up a mine that any instant threatens to destroy all things antagonistic to itself. It has attained an influence as mighty and universal as it will one day be deadly, should circumstances ever warrant it safety and success in throwing off the mask of secretness and inertness which has rested upon its blood-begrimmed features so long. It has woven a net around the world that is gradually securing all things, little and great, in its meshes, and slowly drawing them into the dominion and beneath the authority of the "Mother Church." It has caused millions and millions of beings, of all ages and sexes, in all parts of the world, to have one soul, one mind, one will,—and that one subject to the wishes of the Pope, as expressed through his bishops and priests. It has originated and established the most elaborate and extensive consolidation of mind to one object that ever was or can be originated and established, unless upon the foundation of Americanism in America; and the result is, that the Roman Catholic church is the most tremendous engine of social and political power that has been brought into existence since the world began—an engine of the greatest magnitude and of the most complex order, yet one whose every portion is so carefully and systematically managed that centuries may pass away before a single vibration can come unlooked for.
And yet Americans will sleep on, as if they knew not that their rights and liberties, and privileges AS Americans, are being daily and hourly encroached upon at a rate that threatens to soon strip them of all!
Since the commencement of the present century, an almost total change has been wrought in the political condition of the world, which is mostly attributable to the spread of Catholicism over new grounds, and the strengthening of it in the old. The greater portion of this vast change has been wrought in the United States, during the last twenty-five years. The good old principles of republicanism and Protestantism that animated the heroes of the revolution have been gradually crushed out, and their places usurped by those of a decidedly opposite nature; until no political movement can be made without its being more or less influenced towards an evil end by the adherents of the Romish church, who have, as before observed, in substance, gained a sure footing and an enormous influence in the United States, through the sufferance of Americans! Not a day nor an hour passes in which some example of the power and despotism of the Jesuitical leaders in America is not hurled in the face of the descendants of the cotemporaries and fellow-patriots of the immortal Washington! Not a day passes without beholding the shackles that now fetter American liberty closer drawn around it, and bidding fair to soon become riveted in a manner that will effectually prevent all attempts to throw them off! Not a day passes that some new insult and indignity is not offered to the noble few who dare to come out and say, "We are Americans!" Not a day passes that does not behold hundreds of emigrants, sunken in the lowest depths of poverty, ignorance and superstition, landing on our shores from the Old World, knowing but one will, and seeking the advancement of but one purpose, and that combined will and purpose that of the disciples of Ignatius Loyola and Alexander Borgia! Not a day passes that is not marked by the Papal powers in America with some new step towards the general establishment of Papal rule in the United States, and the complete demolition of patriotism, Protestantism and liberty! Not a day passes that is not polluted with plots and daring schemes against the very existence of the Union; not an hour in which some new additions are not given to the resources of the Catholic church!
Such being the case, every American who is worthy of the name cannot fail of seriously considering what is to be the ending of this peculiar state of affairs. It will be blood, sooner or later—blood! In every portion of the world where the Catholic church has gained a footing, it has not resigned it without bloodshed; nor will it forego its advancement by the same means. To attain by blood, and retain by the same means, is the greatest element of its success. Its power in America has arrived at a point where it will neither yield what it has, nor be content without grasping for more; and this feeling will prepare the way for a feud between two great parties, which will lead to the subjugation of one or the other. The disciples of the church of Rome, or the descendants of the revolutionary patriots, must eventually rule the United States; and the time has come when it is a question for serious consideration whether it shall be ruled by us or them.
I am not one who has a penchant for prophesying evil, nor for creating an alarm when there is not any danger. I have drawn my conclusions on this subject from a critical analyzation of the motives and principles that have been the life of the Romish church since the days of the Borgias. Wherever it has acquired even a moderate degree of power, it has left a track of blood. Wherever its supremacy has been such as to warrant the experiment, it has been a harbinger of destruction, death and desolation, to all who have ventured to oppose it by word or deed. And such it will ever be,—such it will finally be in America, should its strength ever be so overwhelming as to make this end one easy of accomplishment, which God forbid!
It is believed that Americans are not sufficiently aware of the nature of the church of Rome to treat its modern developments with a proper seriousness; and hence this work is written. It is believed that its claim to be considered the church, and the only legitimate church of the Messiah, has not been considered in a manner that does justice to its pretensions. It is believed that the mysteries and iniquities of its secret tribunals have not been explained as elaborately as is desirable for the advancement of humanity and Protestantism. It is also believed that the character of the men who have filled the Papal chair, and are now worshipped as saints, and as the successors of St. Peter in the legitimate order of apostolic succession, has never been revealed to the world in a style as distinct and highly-colored as the subject is worthy of; and hence I have taken one name, one career, from the list, for the material of this story,—that of the notorious and infamous robber, assassin, seducer, incestuous libertine, and Pope—Alexander Borgia!
From his career of crime and infamy it is my purpose to show what corruption and pollution lies festering at the heart of the Catholic church. Alexander Borgia is boasted, by "all good Catholics," as one of those it is their delight to consider noble leaders of their church; but never was earth polluted by the existence of a more depraved and crime-stained monster in the shape of man. His name was written imperishably on the age in which he lived, in characters of blood. History has set him down as a mark for the execration and loathing of all mankind; and yet we are told, by the most sapient disciples of the church of Rome, that this man ranks as one of the apostolic successors of St. Peter!
The chief object of this work will be to show his claims to that honor, and to reveal the general evils that were then, and are now, incorporated in the religion (??) of which he was, and is, a loudly-vaunted representative! If the reader finds him painted, not as a man, but as a fiend in human semblance, breeding vice and crime in a half-benighted world, they will remember that this feature is a matter of history!