derous code of shameless criminality. Why do not more of the honorable laity repudiate this "immoral" code and abandon it? Do they wish to be particeps criminis of its tainted profits? Or are they moral cowards? "The tree is known by its fruits". Until the moral standard is purified and exalted the standard of living in the Church will be unchanged. No people as a rule rise above their church or moral standards. Honorable exceptions will always be found; but they will be few in number; yet made of the stuff that furnished the martyrs of all the Christian Centuries. Men and women who could neither be bought or frightened, who could die but could not lie. We have, conscientious, dauntless, unconquerable souls who suffered extremist tortures, rather than abdicate their manhood in doing what they believed wrong.

These heroic souls, created Independent Sovereigns; "made but a little lower than the Angels; crowned with glory and honor for all the eternities."

Therefore there need be no surprise that most carefully compiled statistics prove beyond question that the Roman Catholic nations are the most poverty stricken, the most servile, the most illiterate, and the most immoral and criminal in Christendom-or, we believe, in Paganism. The early Choctaw, or Winnebago tribes would regard with horror the Romish Code of lying, lechery, and murder.

But a better day is dawning. Nearly all the Romanist Countries of the world have within the

past fifty to one hundred years cast off the Romish yoke of greed and tyranny and granted a limited or full measure of liberty of Conscience. Italy, France, and Portugal in Europe and all the Central and South American Countries have renounced in a measure or wholly their allegiance to Rome. "The Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth" is repudiated by her own children.

Surely there is something radically and fundamentally wrong when, after centuries of absolute and undivided control, her own children denounce and despoil her. Notwithstanding her threats of ostracism, and consignment to eternal damnation; notwithstanding her secret and iron grip upon politics and business; notwithstanding her secret spies through the Confessional and Jesuitism; and the frequent mobbing and murdering of those who leave her communion, and those who expose her corruptions and tyranny; there must be something fundamentally, essentially, wrong when her own children repudiate and rob her.

But millions of her own adherents will not believe her vile record; and millions, even, of ignorant and indifferent Protestants cannot comprehend her utter vileness, her criminal and bloody teaching and practice; and think ex-priests and ex-nuns and others are lying when they are not telling one half the truth. The whole truth is known only to "God who will reward every man accordto his deeds." Every man whether pope, cardinal, bishop, or priest, will answer for crime. Before the high court of heaven there will be no exceptions

or privileged persons. All stand on the common platform of character and deeds. "He is no Respecter of persons". Thank God, there is a righteous judge of all the earth! There the poor, the oppressed, the persecuted, the martyred millions of men, women, and children, will receive final and eternal Justice.

That will be a black day for Rome, her coldblooded tyrants and her servile sychophants! The murderers and adulterers, the idolaters and all Liars shall hear the dread judgment. "Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

A Royal Example of Falsehood-No Faith With Heretics

A notable example of lying with the approval of the Church is found in the Emperor Sigismund of the Holy Roman Empire. It was during his reign that the Council of Constance in Switzerland was held. John Huss of Prague, in Bohemia, was cited to appear before this Council to answer charges of heresy. These were principally for believing and teaching the doctrines of the English Reformer, Wicklyffe.

One of the leading doctrines of the Reformers was the denial of Transubstantiation which means that in the consecration of the wafer by the priest saying "this is my body" it became the real body of Christ, as St. Alphonsus Liguori says, "the priest, in a sense, is the creator of his Creator; and that it

takes as much power to do this as to remove a mountain." For refusing adoration to this absurdity, this blasphemy, to adore a pancake God and other heresies, Huss was condemned and burnt at the stake on the 6th day of July, 1415.

The Emperor Sigismund had pledged his royal word that Huss should be allowed peaceably to go to Constance and return home. The Royal or Imperial rescript pledged him a safe conduct to Constance and return. Notwithstanding this "safe conduct" the council condemned Huss and the Emperor allowed him to be burnt.

Many of the princes of Germany blamed the Emperor for this voluntary breach of his pledged word. "The word of an Emperor should be above suspicion." The pledged troth of a King should be inviolate! Truth is the responsibility of every man especially of those in authority.

About two months afterward the Council to protect itself and the Emperor took the following action:

"This present sacred synod declares that whatsoever safe conduct has been granted by the emperor, kings, or other secular princes to heretics, or such as are defamed for heresy, thinking thus to recall them from their errors, and by whatsoever bond they have obliged themselves to the observance of it, no prejudice can arise, no impediment can or ought to be put to the Catholic faith or other ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but that (notwithstanding the safe conduct) it may be lawful for any competent and ecclesiastical judge to

inquire into the errors of such persons, and duly otherways proceed against them, and punish them so far as justice shall require, if they shall pertinaciously refuse to revoke their errors; yea, though they come to the place of judgment, relying upon such safe conduct, and would not otherwise come thither; nor doth he who so promiseth, remain obliged in anything when he has done what lies in him."-"History of the Councils," by Labbe and Cossart, Vol XII, cols. 169, 170.

This decree did not satisfy all minds, and the act of the council, contrary to the emperor's pledged faith, continued to excite adverse criticism. The council passed another decree in further explanation of its action, threatening punishment to those who should thereafter disparage either the council or the emperor. This decree runs thus:

"The holy synod decrees: Forasmuch as certain persons presumptuously or with a sinister intention or wishing to be wise above what is right, not only calumniate the emperor, but also this sacred council, with slanderous tongues, publicly and secretly saying or insinuating that the safe conduct given by the most invincible Prince Sigismund, king of the Romans, Hungary, etc., to John Huss, the heresiarch, of execrable memory, was unduly violated, contrary to justice and honor; although the said John Huss, by obstinately impugning the orthodox faith, forfeited all safe conduct and privileges, and no faith or promise was to be kept with him by natural law, either human or divine, to the prejudice of the Catholic faith; therefore, the