Page:An Index of Prohibited Books (1840).djvu/13

Rh, and flatter themselves that the wolf will do so too. The time is come that they must bestir themselves in some appropriate and effectual way; and, having found, that when the iron chains of civil restraint were so lovingly replaced by the chains of cherry-stones, which the dealers in securities had provided, the case was not much mended, they will feel it necessary to gird themselves to a new kind of warfare more within their own power; and by attacking the very citadel of Popery, and exposing its essential iniquity, in principle and practice, they may confidently hope to cover it with an infamy, which, with all its impudence, it shall be able to face no longer. The means are furnished by the Impostor herself, much of it indeed very involuntarily. The volumes of no longer enjoy the concealment of exclusive sacerdotal circulation. Their pages, with their sanction, are thrown open to the profane eyes of heretics; and those heretics can read, and understand, and publish. The public is acquainted with the disclosure, the denial, and, when interest dictated, the re-acknowledgment, of these books. Their authority, their destined use, has been divulged. They are a mine, which has yielded much, but which is yet unexhausted. The rolls have been opened, and must still continue so. They will afford text for abundant future comment. It will not serve to put off their contents, as the