FATHER DILLON'S LECTURE

 on " Catholic Association:"

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 II.          
Now, in considering this present persecution, which is certainly more general than any past persecution of the Church, and which, if not as yet so sanguinary, is unquestionably far more fatal to Christianity than any, or I would even say than all, the imperial persecutions together, I can find nothing to which it can be more justly compared, than to the sweeping devastation of Islamism. I doubt whether even Islamism wrought so much mischief materially or morally to the cause of Christ. Certainly upon many of the provinces upon which it descended it left little trace of Christianity. But it never hated the name of Christ more, nor was its determination at any time a whit stronger to exterminate His cause in the blood of His followers, than is now the case with that new Islamism which, under the generic name of the Revolution, seeks the obliteration of Christian Europe and the placing of complete Atheism in its stead. If it did not arise like Mahometanism, suddenly and sweepingly, it has come upon the world with far more deadly, because with more cautious effect. In the Moslem, moreover, there was sometimes chivalry, sometimes mercy; in the Revolution nothing exists but what might be expected from the "father of lies," "the liar and the murderer from the beginning"— that is, black treachery, deceit, and sordid meanness ; heartless cruelty, hypocrisy, low cowardice,and secret assassination. Mahomet promised his followers a paradise of houries in the after life; and scope, but a somewhat ordered scope,to the lowest human passion in this ; but the infidel of the Revolution preaches no soul, no sin, no reward, no punishment, no God, no judgment ; but gives the freest and the foulest licence to wallow in unlimited brutal indulgence, and to commit all other manner of crime, when possible, with impunity. His 'Allah il allah !" is "liberty, equality, fraternity!" — a deceptive and seductive war-cry ; for his liberty is Socialism and, ultimately, Communism ; his equality that of the cattle of the field ; and his fraternity the power of combination to secure his ends by force and fraud, and by the sanguinary extermination of the friends not only of religion, but of an social order, of property, right, and justice, whenever he should be strong enough to effect it.  
These are his ultimate aims, and to reach them the modern infidel labours with a patience, with a determination, and with an ingenuity which the spirit of evil alone could give. He sees far, and strives unceasingly, that, step by step, that  imperceptibly, he may reach his end. It was in the foulest recesses of sworn secrecy his dark designs had birth. With the advent of Atheism came Masonry, then followed Illuminism, the product of the perverted genius of Weishaupt, which wedded Masonry to infidelity and revolution, and made it the apt novitiate by which the unwary might be weaned imperceptibly from Christianity, and in its hidden higher degrees perverted into an open enmity of God Soon came its first fruits in the great French Revolution. With the extinction of that terrible conflagration this spirit of fell infidelity did not die. Weishaupt outlived it, lived to perfect his universal league of secret Atheistic plotting till 1830. In every land since then his disciples have not ceased to intrigue, and to intrigue with deep, deliberate caution, gnawing at the very foundations of religion and order, but most especially against Catholicity, and, above all, against that work upon which Christ has built it, the Holy Apostolic See.
Now, this conspiracy forms the Revolution, and it formed every revolution in Europe, from the first French Revolution to the rise of the Parisian Commune. It holds in its hands every secret society in the world. It aims at a command over the intelligence of men in every nation, and over the leaders in every state. Through the agency of the press, and of its several agents and accomplices, everywhere through plausible liberal and patriotic cries, through simulated support of the State against the Church, and of freedom against oppression, it has succeeded in undermining the three best allies of Christianity in the world, namely, the Christianity of the State, the Christianity of the family, and the Christianity of the school. Its efforts are unceasing at the spread amongst the masses of immoral and Atheistic opinions, so that religion may be ruined in the individual wherever possible. Of course in fallen, sinful nature it everywhere finds disciples. In all their acts the Infidels have been but too faithful to their first apostles — to Voltaire and Rousseau, who preached to them in Atheism, the complete rejection of all authority, governmental, parental, marital, as well as ecclesiastical. They have, unfortunately, succeeded in gaining everywhere the State to their side under pretence of repressing the excessive power of the Church. We know with what force they have long used the arguments against "priestly power," against "clerical influence." Examples enough of the form of this shallow intrigue being successful is found in the present political victories of Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. But none are now deceived, not even the statesmen most hostile to Catholicity, as to the ultimate intentions of the infidels.    
When the State overthrows its best support, the Church, the demolition of the State itself will be an easy matter afterwards. This is Diderot's teaching :

"Et des boyaux du dernier pretre
Serrer le cou du dernier roi"—
(With the bowels of the last priest strangle the last king).  

And they mean to follow it. Hence the separation and the war between Church and State in every country of Europe, and hence, the persecution which is now upon every land. The moment the revolution gets into any ascendancy, down falls the Cross as speedily as if the "Children of the Prophet" had passed. Monasteries and their inmates, religious orders of every kind and sex, colleges, hospitals, orphanages, Christian schools, and Christian customs, churches, property,all pass as certainly from a  Christian state or city when once the red flag waves over it as if it had succumbed to the Crescent.    
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 Freeman's Journal 6 December 1873,