ly how this matter stands. Hear once more Mr White:

"I do not blame individuals for partaking the spirit of their age, but protest against a church which, having attained the fulness of strength under the influence of the most ignorant ages, would, for the sake of that strength, stop the progress of time, and reduce the nineteenth century to the intellectual standard of the thirteenth.* Moral as well as physical beings must love their native atmosphere; and Rome being no exception to this law, is still daily employed in renovating and spreading credulity, enthusiasm, and superstition-the elements in which she thrives. The charge is strong, and expressed in strong language; but, I believe, not stronger than the following proofs will warrant.

"A Christian church cannot employ a more effectual instrument to fashion and mould the minds of her members, than the form of prayer and worship which she sanctions for daily use. Such is the Breviary or Prayer-book of the Roman Catholic clergy, which, as it stands in the present day, is the most authentic work of that kind. In consequence of a decree of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius V. ordered a number of learned and able men to compile the Breviary, and by his bull, Quod a nobis, July 1566, sanctioning it, commanded the use thereof to the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church all over the world. Clement VIII., in 1602, finding the Breviary of Pius V. had been altered and depraved, restored it to its pristine state, and ordered, under pain of excommunication, that all future editions should strictly follow that which he then printed at the Vatican. Lastly, Urban VIII., in 1631, had the language of the whole work, and the metres of the hymns, revised. The value which the Church of Rome sets upon the Breviary, may be known from the strictness with which she demands the perusal of it. Whoever enjoys an ecclesiastical revenue; all persons of both sexes who have professed in any of the regular orders; † all subdeacons, deacons, and priests, are bound to repeat, either in public or pri

vate, the whole service of the day, out of the Breviary. The omission of any one of the eight portions of which that service consists, is declared to be a mortal sin, i. e. a sin that, unrepented, would be sufficient to exclude from salvation. The person guilty of such an omission, loses all legal right to whatever portion of his clerical emoluments is due for the day or days wherein he neglected that duty, and cannot be absolved till he has given the forfeited sums to the poor, or redeemed the greatest part by a certain donation to the Spanish crusade. Such are the sanctions and penalties by which the reading of the Breviary is enforced. The scrupulous exactness with which this duty is performed by all who have not secretly cast off their spiritual allegiance, is quite surprising. For more than twelve years of my life, at a period when my university studies required uninterrupted attention, I believed myself bound to repeat the appointed prayers and lessons; a task which, in spite of a rapid enunciation, took up an hour and a half daily. A dispensation of this duty is not to be obtained from Rome without the utmost difficulty. I never, indeed, knew or heard of any one who had obtained it.

"The Breviary, therefore, must be reckoned the true standard to which the church of Rome wishes to reduce the minds and hearts of her clergy, from the highest dignitary to the most obscure priest. It is in the Breviary that we may be sure to find the full extent of the pious belief, to which she trains the pastors of her flock; and the true stamp of those virtues which she boasts of in her models of Christian perfection. By making the daily repetition of the Breviary a paramount duty of the clergy, Rome evidently gives it the preference over all other works; and as far as she is concerned, provided the appointed teachers of her laity read her own book, they may trouble themselves very little about others, Nay, should a Roman Catholic clergyman, as is often the case, be unable to devote more than an hour and a half a day to reading, his church places him under the necessity of deriving his whole knowledge from the Breviary.

"It is rather curious to observe the dif ference in the assertion of Italian and of French miracles; the unhesitating confidence with which the former are stated, the hypercritical jealousy which appears in the narrative of the latter. The walk of St Dionysius, with his own head in his hands, from Paris to the site of the present abbey of St Dennis, is given only as a credible report. De quo illud memoriæ proditum est, abscissum suum caput sustulisse, et progressum ad duo millia passuum in manibus gestasse.' The French, indeed, with their liberties of the Gallican church, have never been favourites at Rome; but all is certainty in the accounts of Italian worthies. Witness the renowned St Januarius, whose extraordinary miracles, both during his life under Diocletian, and in our own days, are stated with equal confidence and precision. That saint, we are told, being thrown into a burning furnace, came out so perfectly unhurt, that not even his clothes or hair were singed. The next day all the wild beasts in the amphitheatre came crouching to his feet. I pass over the other ancient performances of Januarius to show the style in which his wonderful works, after death, are given. His body, for instance, on one occasion, extinguished the flames of Vesuvius.† This is no miracle upon vague report, but one which, according to the Breviary, deserves a peculiar remembrance. Next comes that noble miracle'-præclarum illud the liquefaction of Januarius's blood, which takes place every year in Naples. The usual state of the blood, as a coagulated mass, and its change into a bubbling fluid, are circumstantially described, as might be expected, from historians, who convey the most minute information, even about the clothes and hair of a martyr that died fifteen hundred years ago. The liquefaction, indeed, with all its circumstances, they must have witnessed themselves, or derived their infor mation concerning it from thousands of Neapolitan witnesses.

"And here let me observe by the way, the extraordinary liberality of his church upon these points, which Mr Butler sets forth to the admiration of the world. A

person,' he tells us, may disbelieve every other miracle, (except those which are re lated in the Old and New Testament,) and may even disbelieve the existence of the persons through whose intercession they are related to have been wrought, without ceasing to be a Roman Catholic.'‡ We must, however, exempt from this very ample privilege those who thus solemnly publish the miracles themselves, or their honesty would certainly be placed in a strange predicament. Still, by a stronger reason, we must suppose them perfectly convinced of the reality of that annual wonder, which for ages has been repeated under their eyes. How, then, can they be so insensible to the forlorn condition of heretics and unbelievers, as not to allow a close inspection of that undeniable proof of the Roman Catholic faith? The present Pope invites us to see the manger where the infant Saviour lay at Bethlehem. Would it not be more charitable to allow one of our chemists to view the blood of St Januarius, and observe its change,-not surrounded by priests, candles, and the smoke of frankincense, and thus convert us all at once.'

"

This church, however, does not patronize mere absurdities, though it were charge enough that she was guilty, as she unquestionably is, of the Antichristian sin of degrading the miracles of the Bible, by loading them with the weight of her own vile inventions. The superstitions which she inculcates are not merely absurd, and consequently dangerous to the faith which they disfigure-they are often directly and distinctly of immoral, sinful, and most unchristian tendency.

"The first noxious ingredient which poisons charity in the Roman Catholic system of sanctity, is intolerance. The seeds of this bitter plant are, indeed, inseparable from a hearty reception of her doctrines, as I have proved before; but its mature fruit, persecution, is praised among the virtues of saints, whose citcumstances enabled them to use force against pagans or heretics. Thus, in the life of Canute the Dane, his donations to the church are hardly more commended

than the zeal with which he conquered the barbarians, with the purpose of making them Christians.* St Ferdinand, King of Castille, is represented as an eminent sample of that peculiar Roman Catholic virtue, which visits dissent from the faith of Rome with the mild correctives of sword and fire. In alliance with the cares of government, the regal virtues (SAYS THE BREVIARY) shone in him-magnanimity, clemency, justice, and above all, zeal for the Catholic faith, and an ardent determination to defend and propagate its worship. This he performed, in the first place, by persecuting heretics, to whom he allowed no repose in any part of his kingdom; and for whose execution, when condemned to be burned, he used to carry the wood with his own hands. Who then shall be surprised to find inquisitors canonized by Rome, or to hear her addressing a daily prayer to the great and merciful Father of mankind, that he would be pleased to bruise, by the power of his right hand, all pagan and heretical nations? Such are the words which Rome puts in the mouth of every Spanish priest who celebrates high mass."+

This is followed by an exposure, quite as complete, of the dreary nonsepse inculcated in every page of this Breviary, about fastings, scourgings, eternal genuflexions, repetitions upon repetitions of Ave Marias, and so forth; and that again is followed by an equally clear and painful summary of the odious canting stuff with which the same book of books overlays everywhere the pure emotions of Christian piety. There are many passages in this last section which we do not hold exactly adapted pueris virginibusque. We shall, therefore, leave the whole untouched-but let us gratify ourselves and our readers by quoting the manly and Christian appeal, with which the author closes his text.

"In the name of the Father of Spirits, whose eyes are upon the truth,' I entreat such as love the Author of our common faith, more than the name of a religious party, not to efface the impres

sion of shame which these passages must produce, by the usual method of recrimination. I protest before Heaven, that neither through these quotations, nor by any expression which in the course of this work may have flowed from my feelings, it has been my purpose to hurt yours. Remember, that whatever absurdities you might glean from Protestant writers, cannot affect a church whose authorised articles of faith and form of prayer, have nothing in common with such aberrations from common sense and the Gospel. Observe, on the other hand, how naturally the credulity and dangerous sentimentality with which your pious books abound, flow from the system of Rome, exhibited in her prayer-book, as well as in her whole conduct in regard to miracles and devotional practices. Remark the activity and watchfulness with which she has at all times persecuted all kinds of books, wherein the least insinuation was thrown out, not against her articles of faith, but even the least part of this her deluding system. Compare it with the supine indifference which she exhibits in giving free course to thousands of books which, at this very day, propagate everything that can degrade the understanding and enfeeble the mind, under the name of piety. When you have cancide with yourselves, if it be not the part didly and honestly weighed all this, deof every ingenuous and liberal Catholic of these kingdoms, to strike out the Roman from his religious denomination, and place in its stead the noble epithet of Christian? Preserve, with God's blessing, so much of your tenets as may appear to you consistent with his word; but disown a church which, by her miracles, libels the Gospel history with imposture; and whose mawkish piety disfigures the sublime Christian worship into drivelling imbecility."

We are unquestionably of opinion, that of late years much ignorance has prevailed among the Protestants of Britain, in regard to the real character and effects of the Romish superstition. We cannot account for much of what has been done and said in Parliament, without believing that this ignorance

has prevailed to a great extent even among the best-informed classes of society in England. The absurdities and extravagancies of that system are in fact so glaring, that it is no wonder people should be slow of believing that it is really maintained among any nations who have at all profited by the light of modern civilization. This general aversion to believe a thing ex facie, so strange and unaccountable, coupled with the unceasing craft of the priestly leaders of the British Catholics, who have long had an exoteric doctrine for us, and an esoteric one for their flocks, goes far, we think, to explain at first sight the incredible and monstrous fact, that British statesmen, of the highest rank and talent, should actually be seen fighting in the British Parliament, in the 19th century, the cause of a Church, which degrades all that adhere to her, and holds no faith with those who do not. We no longer, after what we have quoted in this paper, fear to use these last words. We appeal to the proof, that the Pope claims the power of declaring any oath, the keeping of which is favourable to heretics, and therefore noxious to the Catholic Church, to have been ab initio null and void. We appeal to that proof, and we repeat distinctly, that this is a Church which holds no faith, as a Church, with those who, having received Christian baptism, deny the supreme authority of the See of Rome. The adherents of that Church must not, until that doctrine be disavowed by the highest authority of the Church herself, sit within the walls of Parliament, to affect by their votes the interests of the Protestant Church and Government of England.

Why should all the concessions come from us? Why should not the Catholic Church disclaim from the fountain-head the impious dogma, in which, even by Mr Butler's own account of the matter, a Roman Catholic may, as the matter stands, unreprovedly believe, viz. that the Pope's supremacy is not more inalienable than illimitable? What security have we that another Pope is never to appear in the Vatican, backed by great temporal power? What knowledge have we that an Austrian Archduke, or a Spanish Prince, may not one day sit on the chair of St Peter? We have at all events seen, even in our time, how liable the Pope may be to be

tempted into making himself the instrument of a powerful throne. Suppose the late Pope to have truckled to Buonaparte-suppose Buonaparte to be now emperor, with a submissive Pope at his beck, will any man say, that in that situation of things it would be safe to admit Catholics to sit in our Parliament, it being, by their own account, quite consistent with their good behaviour as Catholics, that they should believe in the doctrine of the Pope's supremacy, even according to the most violent transalpine explanation of that doctrine. We do not see the wisdom of doing that, in relation to a question of endless importance, in 1825, which, it must be conceded on all hands, could not have been done without absolute insanity in 1811. The thing that hath been may be again.

It is eternally said that we have no power, by political measures, to diminish the number of our Catholics, and that therefore we must admit them as they are into the sanctum of our government and legislature. We appeal to plain facts. England was, for the most part, a Catholic country for some time after the Protestant religion was the religion of the English state. The Popish sect has dwindled into nothing, comparatively speaking, in England-and even the few great families that adhere to it are split. The last Duke of Norfolk was a Protestant, and the brother of the present Duke was one also. We have no doubt, that if it were possible to make these people understand the deep-rooted aversion of the English mind to their superstition, and the absolute impossibility that their claims should be granted until after they have modified their tenets, we should soon see their ranks thinned, and thinned with a vengeance. If pride be a powerful motive, vanity and ambition are strong ones also. We have no sort of belief that there are many well-educated gentlemen in England who are bond fide Catholics. We utterly disbelieve this. There are few such either in France, or Italy, or Germany; and why should the breed flourish in England, when it is virtually extinct even in the Catholic countries themselves? This is a religion built up for the behoof of priests, propped up on the abject ignorance and superstitions of the vulgar, which it degrades, and advocated, we devoutly believe, by no