Page:Civil Liberty in Lower Canada.djvu/14

12 we will reproduce here what the Fathers of the Fifth Provincial Council of Quebec, have said of it.

"Catholic liberalism," they say, was introduced little by little into the Holy Church and is there hidden by means of tricks and adroitness, like the ancient serpent in the terrestrial paradise, in order to lead away imprudent souls, inducing them by his artifices, to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

We leave to your serious reflection all and every word of this definition, which makes you understand that Liberalism is no other thing than the demon which, hidden under the form of the ancient serpent, and armed with his rage, his malice and his tricks, is now found in the middle of us to destroy us, as it unhappily destroyed our first parents, in despoiling us of the robe of justice and innocence, and in making us lose that faith, pure and simple, which does not reason with God and with the Church. Alas, it is for us to make ourselves guilty of arrogance and disobedience, to merit for ourselves the heaviest chastisements of divine vengeance, for them to be shamefully chased from the sanctuary of all revealed revelations by losing the faith, and to be plunged into the abyss of the greatest evils. In order to well comprehend it, it will be sufficient just to cast a glance at the horrible evils which desolate European Governments and peoples, struck with an inconceivable vertigo in punishment for their Liberalism. Thus, Christian brethren, the certainty that Catholic Liberalism is hidden among us, and the fear that this terrible monster causes not only the evils which he necessarily drags in his train are sufficient to make us tremble and make us cry out against our dangers.

WHAT MUST BE DONE IN ORDER NOT TO FOLLOW A FALSE ROUTE.

In passing through these bad times, and lining in these days of scandals, attach yourself with all your heart to the practical rules which we trace out for you in the presence of God and with the sole object of securing your greatest good.

1st.—Hear Jesus Christ in hearing the Church, To