our clergy. In truth, there are very few Protestant clergymen of any denomination in America who do not possess and exercise more despotic authority over the opinions and actions of their flocks than any Pope ever dared to aspire to.

Upon this subject of influence, I shall make one general observation; it is necessary that the clergy should possess it to a certain extent; but to possess it is not criminal, nor is it criminal to obtain it by lawful and proper means: but it is criminal to use dishonest or unbecoming means to procure it, and if possible more criminal to abuse it when it has been obtained. If the doctrine of the Church be true; and if her practices are founded upon this doctrine, the influence naturally and fairly arising from that practice cannot be improperly acquired. That it might have been in some instances abused, I am prepared to admit, but so has the influence arising from a variety of other true doctrines and pious practices. But the abuse might be corrected without the destruction of the doctrine: as I have somewhere read; it is not necessary to demolish a ship for banishing the vermin with which it is infested: nor would a wise man burn his residence to destroy its cobwebs. Mr. Blanco White assumes what I am not ready to concede, when he insinuates that there was a time "when the whole of Christendom was more ignorant and superstitious than the most degraded portions of it are at present. I deny the truth of this insinuation: and I will undertake to maintain against any of the reverend junta of his approbators the following propositions.

1. That the whole of Christendom was never since the reign of Constantine sunk into more religious ignorance and superstition, than the whole of Eugland and Wales is at the present moment.

2. That there is less knowledge of the doctrine of Christ at the present moment in England and Wales, than in any other part of Europe, except Russia, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

3. That there is not in Europe a people so much given to the ignorant superstition of believing in omens, dreams, charms and fortune telling, as the Protestant people of England.

I know what bold assertion and rhetorical declamation have done to create the contrary impression; but I shall require facts, and will give facts in answer; I shall pay no attention to vaporing or declamation; neither will I admit that the authorized ceremonial of one Church is superstitions, nor assume that the practice of the other is so.

I now meet White upon his own ground of conviction, and try him by his own test. And I state a notorious fact. In Ireland there is not, I believe, a single sanctuary of the description which he mentions;

should there be a few, they make no account in the general view. Here then is the very case in which he asserted that "more than half the blind deference which the multitude pay to the clergy, and through the clergy to Rome, would quickly disappear." Yet the Irish are said to be the most blindly deferential multitude to their clergy and to Rome of any people in the world. So that the gentleman has had the benefit of his test and lost its application: it even tells to his contradiction.

I thought here to make a passing remark upon the gross misconduct and irreligious demeanor in these States, of some persons who, in that island of saints, were apparently irreproachable, but this is not the place, nor is the present the occasion which I would select to exhibit the cause of this deplorable fatuity: it has produced lamentable effects; but I trust they are transient.

One word more upon this paragraph. Upon the subject of miracles; with the exception of those recorded in the Scripture, White ought to know that no Roman Catholic is bound to believe in the truth of any one, of the evidence to support which he is not fully satisfied: though he is bound by common sense and by revelation to believe that the hand of God is not shortened, nor his power lessened, and that he is as fully able to work a miracle to-day as he was in the days of Moses, or of the Apostles: and hence that if by the phrase, "the age of miracles is gone by," it is meant to convey the idea that God cannot now perform by himself or by his agents, those extraordinary and peculiar works, it is equally opposed to reason and to religion.

His next paragraph is that which follows, in page 96.

"The advantages resulting in Rome from the combined effect of indulgences, relics, saints and their images, are not, however, derived only indirectly through the deference enjoyed by her clergy. The bond thereby created between the Pope and the most distant regions which acknowledge his spiritual dominion, is direct. The Mexican and the Peruvian expects the publication of the annual bull, which allows him to eat eggs and milk in lent, enables him to liberate, by name, a certain number of his relations from purgatory, and enlarges the power of his confessor, for the absolution of the most hideous crimes. Wherever he turns, he sees a protecting saint, whose power and willingness to defend him, could not be ascertained without the supernatural and unquestionable authority of the Pope. It is the Holy Father who, by a solemn declaration, allots every district to the peculiar patronage of the saint; it is he who, by grants of indulgence, encourages the worship of those miraculous images which form central points of devotion over all the Roman Catholic world: it is he who warrants the supernatural state

of incorruption of the body of one saint, and traces, with unerring certainty, some straggling limb to another. It is, finally, he who alone has the undoubted power of virtually furnishing the faithful with the relics of the most ancient or unknown patriarchs and martyrs, by bidding the fragment of any skeleton in the catacombs, be part of the body in request. 57

The first portion of this paragraph only goes to show that we are "one fold under one shepherd:" that we are trying to keep the "unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all: until we come in the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly jointed together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase in the body, unto the edifying itself in love." (Ephes. iv.) I would ask any rational man, whether it be against the doctrine of the Apostle and of his divine. Master, that this unity of the body should be produced by "giving some Apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers; for the perfection of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ," (Eph. iv,) by the fulfilment of the Saviour's prayer, "neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me, that they may all be one; as Thou Father in me, and I in thee, that they may be also one in us," and so forth (John xvii,) by the sort of unity which the Saviour exhibited as that to be established: "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold; one shepherd." (John x.) The first portion of the paragraph asserts that the most distant nations are preserved in this unity by our practice. I say, it is internal evidence of the correctness of the practice.

The last portion is a blending of discreditable misrepresentation and palpable falsehood: of the first kind is the description of the annual

This is called christening relics. The persuasion that bones so christened are as good as those of the favorite saint to whom they are attributed, is certainly general in my country. I have no doubt that it is common to all Catholics."

bull, the nature and object of which has been heretofore described at length in the Miscellany; of the latter kind is the statement that it is the Pope who allots every district to the patronage of a peculiar saint: if White knew the law or practice of the Roman Catholic Church, he would have been aware that this is not done by the Popes, nor by the Bishops, nor by the Priests, but by the people; the next assertion is notoriously false, for as I have before shown, images, whether miraculous or not, are not worshipped, and their worship is neither encouraged nor tolerated: neither is it the Pope who warrants the state of incorruption of a saint, but medical men and other competent witnesses: but it is his decision which approves of the finding of the sufficiency of their testimony by the Congregation of Rites which cautiously re-examines the process and documents of the original tribunals before which the evidence was taken, and which the vituperator styles "tracing with unerring certainty some straggling limb to another." But in this case no person claims infallibility for the Pope, and of course the flourish about unerring certainty is delusive vaporing.

The gross untruth of the insinuation in the closing passage, taken together with the note, is well worthy of a man whose book is such a tissue as I have shown it to be. There are some assertions which it is very difficult to refute: of this description are those to which an allusion is made in the following very prudent advice: "If you mean to lie, do it boldly, and you will be the more likely to succeed: a timid liar is always suspected, but one who comes out with a face of brass and goes through unhesitatingly, will impose upon many and probably will succeed." The canon which restricts the final judgment and decision as to the authenticity of relics, was enacted in direct opposition to the principle insinuated by White. Previously to the Council of Lateran in 1215, several Bishops were found to be remiss in examining the evidence, and in the habit of too easily admitting insufficient proof to show that what was offered was truly a sacred relic; to remedy which, the sixty-second canon of that council reserved the revision and final judgment of the case to the Pope, thereby taking every human precaution against imposition or mistake. Of what value, then, is the declaration of a man, who tells you deliberately that this was giving to the Pope a power which he calls that of christening relics?

LETTER XLIX.

CHARLESTON, S. C., Dec. 13, 1827.

To the Roman Catholics of the United States of America.

My Friends, It is next to impossible that any man who had received his education amongst Roman Catholics, as Blanco White did, could have been the author of the following passage:

"I do not intend to cast any part of your religious system into ridicule; though I confess it is difficult to mention facts like these, without some danger of exciting a smile. These and similar practices you will, perhaps, construe into innocent means of keeping up a sense of religion among the lower classes."

Every one so educated knows that we do not make use of any practice for the purpose of keeping up a sense of religion in any class of persons, unless we believe that practice to be in itself good and lawful; such a person must also know that we do teach to the rich and to the poor, to the learned and to the unlearned, the very same doctrines, and to all we recommend the very same practices. How could we hope to retain in our communion, wise, learned, and virtuous persons, if they were to know that we had recourse to trick, to delusion, and to imposition upon the lower classes? How could we retain the lower classes, among whom are great numbers who are better informed upon subjects of religion than any one of hundreds of learned philosophers whom I could at once designate?

I have seen it frequently stated, that Southey the poet is the author of this book to which Blanco White has lent his name; I have assumed, and shall continue to assume that the work belongs to him whose name it bears; but my suspicions, that such is not the fact, would have been. excited by even this single passage; because it is unquestionably impossible, that any one who ever had been a member of our Church could entertain this notion: and because the notion is commonly entertained of us by Protestants, as I am well aware.

They tell us that it is a compliment to our understandings: I am very far from receiving any compliment at the price which they require for this; that price is the avowal of my being a hypocrite, a dissembler, a knave, an impostor; and an impostor, too, upon the most awful and tremendous of all subjects, the worship of God, the revelation of heaven, the eternal concerns of the human race. Can this be a compliment? Yet such is the politeness which we sometimes meet with!!! I do not at present choose to state what I know to be the true cause of this most extraordinary blending of kindness and of insult, of respect for our un