While American Catholics are a class far superior in intellect to the Catholics of other nations, they still tenaciously cling to the inert Scapular and believe in its efficacy and power; however, the Catholic Church is getting to have quite a number of these Scapulars, which is causing the intelligent Catholics to become a little doubtful as to which has the greatest “pulling power,” and many of them, in order to make no mistake, wear all five of them in a bunch; thus they are assured that if one fails to get in its work another will come to the rescue, and should they fall off of a train moving 60 miles an hour, this little bunch of woolen goods will save them from a bruise, or should they drink a quart of the essence of strychnine they would be saved from instant death by one of these five Scapulars.

You ask a Catholic to explain the merits of the Scapular and all they can tell you is that if they die during the week that the Virgin Mary will then take them to heaven on the Saturday following, but if they happen to die on a Saturday, bear in mind that the Virgin Mary gives them a cold shoulder until the next Saturday.  Now, this is the only explanation that you can get a Catholic to give you in regard to a Scapular.

Is it any wonder that the power to reason is shattered by these cungering devices of Catholicism, and do you wonder that the dense ignorance of Catholic nations are completely under the power of this angel of darkness?

Let us repeat, in conclusion of this chapter, that Romanism is the everlasting enemy of science and individual intellect, as she knows full well that when the broad, effulgent light of Protestantism dawns on the benighted minds of her followers that she at once loses her grasp upon her “hood-winked” dupes, as it is impossible for the teachings of Catholicism to exist side by side with the teachings of Protestantism, provided that those who believe in these Romish abominations care to look above the horizon of Romanism.

[Illustration:  IMMORALITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD—­ With Romish lust, the blossom of virtue is destroyed.]

Chapter V.

Innocent Girlhood at the Confessional Box.

Blight girlhood and you destroy the usefulness of womankind.  Tarnish the sacredness of girlhood and you scar the purity of womanhood.  Deface the beautiful countenance of chastity, which is found in the bosom of girlhood, and you not only mar the happiness of girlhood, but you deface and obliterate the families of the future, for without that priceless treasure, virtue, the eternal principles of conjugal love becomes a barren waste without a single oasis.

Oh, if I could but call about me in one vast throng the girls of this land, and all other lands, who have had the first thought of carnality planted in their bosom by the scheming Priestcraft, I would have a throng of tear-faced mortals that would rend the heart of stone and stigmatize the cunning of Catholicism with a stigma blacker than the lowering clouds of despair.