certain sufferings; if certain masses and requiems are not said for his soul, the Roman Catholic in purgatory must suffer penalties not less than those which the heathens were said to undergo in the regions which bordered upon the fabled Styx. Again, if the temple of Delphi was enriched by presents of inestimable value, which the piety of heathen worshippers was persuaded to entrust to the keeping of the priests of Apollo; the clergy of Loretto, have succeeded in like manner, making the treasury of the Santa Casa the depository of riches, which they persuade their Roman Catholic dupes had better lie there untouched, than be employed for the relief of misery, or in the service of the public. If it were thought an act of the most praiseworthy devotion in the votaries of the heathen world to join in a solemn deputation from some distant part to the isle of Delos; the zealots of the Roman Catholic faith have been taught by their spiritual instructors, that a pilgrimage to Rome or Loretto, is one of the most certain means of propitiating the favour of heaven.

It is thus that Popish services assimilate themselves 'to heathen rites; in the multiplicity of objects of adoration; in the attractive beauty of the paintings and statues ; in the ceremonies of the priesthood, in which the people do not join; in the use of holy water and incense; in the offerings upon the altar; in the votive pictures and tablets; and in that maze of puerile and unsanctifying forms, which converts religion into a 'mere business of the hour, destroys the moral principle, and weakens the belief in personal responsibility."

THE BRITISH

PROTESTANT.

No. XVI.-APRIL, 1846.

POPERY.

WE believe that no mere man is a match for Popery; a Christian leaning on God is; a statesman resting on politics is not. Such is the subtlety of that system, that it is the nearest match for Omnipotence that Satan ever devised. Eminently powerful, it is yet the most elastic and accommodating; retaining all its principles, and yet adapting itself to every class; one day it will flatter the despot on his throne, and the next day pander to the fierce democracy; one day it will put a rod of iron into the tyrant's hand, and the next day blow the trumpet of a wide-spread sedition; one day, raging like a lion, it will rouse and array all the passions that disturb society, and the next day it will gambol and slumber like a lamb. It finds society rent and torn, and it comes to statesmen offering to heal it; it finds kings threatened with rebellion, and it asks for power, and promises to quell it by its bulls. Its promises point to Paradise; its performances terminate in Pandemonium. Romanism remains what its canons make it a system, which displaces the atonement of God by the atonement of man, and the worship of Jesus by the worship of the virgin; which put a padlock on the Bible, and punishes the cottager who reads

VOL. II.

E

it, and confiscates the property of the bookseller who sells it; which incorporates all deadly error, and excludes all the precious and renovating principles, which emanate from God, and are embodied in the oracles of everlasting truth. It is not because it is an anti-social system, that we must always deprecate its endowment; it is because it dishonours God, and ruins precious souls. It is a system which infects the whole social atmosphere with suspiciousness-which sends an argus-eyed police into all the relationships of life, which poisons the wellsprings of social being, and ultimately rouses the nations that have suffered from its success, to pass penal enactments against it, in order to save themselves from utter prostration. We must never suffer the Church of Rome to become the National Establishment, should such an attempt be made by any party. Our illustrious Reformers watch us from their beds of glory. They adjure us by their re-opening wounds to be faithful-to hand down to our children, if not improved, at least not impaired, the blood-bought heritage they left us; and woe to our children, if we shrink from duty, because it may come once more to be set in perilous responsibility. We must yet learn to see in sainted martyrs, not phenomena, whose brilliant transit through the world proclaims their having been here, but in each a projection only of our own soul, an ordinary model for us and others to imitate.

POPISH WONDERS.

THE book from whence the following story is taken is full of others equally absurd, published by what may be called the religious bookseller of Rome, if what is there

sold can be called religious; all books (especially those on religion) printed and published in Rome are by authority, as can be proved; the attempt to print any part of the Holy Scriptures would not be permitted, in fact there is not the slightest liberty of the press, all that is printed is under the strictest surveillance.

The title is as follows:-" The Wonders of God in the Souls of Purgatory. An incentive and assistance to Christian piety. By Father Carlo Gregorio Rosignoli, of the Society of Jesus, in two volumes. Sold at Marini's Library, Piazza del Collegio Romano, No. 4, and at the Tipografia Marinie comp. Via del Jesu, No. 90. Rome, 1841."

The following story is taken from the second volume, page 14, the first story after the introduction.

Wonder 1st.

"Protector factus es mihi, et liberasti corpus meum a perditione Eccl. 51-3.

A great sinner on earth delivered from mortal danger by a soul in purgatory.

The Queen of Heaven and Mother of mercy, has often made use of the souls in purgatory to convert sinners, and to deliver her own devotees from eminent danger of an unhappy death. A cavaliere of the first distinction in a city of Aragon, had married a young lady adorned with all the gifts of nature, and all the graces which can become a high born gentlewoman. Her singular beauty, like a great light, shone quickly into the eyes of another handsome and rich young cavaliere, so that he became violently in love. He began to follow her, to pay her attentions, to do her homage. She whose modesty could only be equalled by her beauty, did all in her power to avoid meeting him, but, notwithstanding, he was always near and about her house, and followed her wherever she went. Hence there very soon arose in the neighbourhood such a rumour of his conduct, that it reached the ears of the husband, and he became very jealous and unhappy, the more so, when he beheld with his own eyes this lover often come and meet the lady, looking affecionately upon her. What more was required?

Jealousy is a mad passion beyond all others; suspecting that the cavaliere was contriving against his honour, he determined to get rid of him by taking away his life. One morning, therefore, suddenly under a feigned pretext, he resolved to go to a country house with his wife and only one servant, where one evening he retired with his wife into a remote apartment, and having locked the door, he took forth a poignard, and pointing it towards her, threatened to kill her if she did not do what he commanded her. She, astonished at so wild a menace from her angry husband, without knowing the reason, quickly agreed to obey him. He then took a sheet of paper, and placing it before his wife, insisted upon her writing what he should dictate, which was an invitation to the lover, that he should come late in the evening to the country house, during her husband's absence, and that at a certain place in the garden he would find a ladder, by which he could enter into her chamber by the window. The letter being written by the frightened and surprised lady, he gave it to the confidential servant in order that he might convey it secretly into the hands of the young man, as if it was sent him by his mistress; the servant punctually obeyed, the cavaliere received the letter, and kissed it with great joy. He did not fail of being punctual to the appointed time; but dressing himself in his best clothes, he mounted on his best horse, taking with him no attendant, saying that he would go out of the city to take an airing. He had gone some way on the road, when approaching a place where some criminals were hung on the gallows (according to the custom of Aragon, which is to leave them suspended for some time to the terror of evildoers) a good thought came into his mind, which was, that he had omitted to recite the rosary on that day, he being in the habit of saying it every day; he was moved with scruples at not having paid his accustomed tribute to the Virgin Mother, and not hindered by the horror of going to offend the divine Son, he began his accustomed devotion, and no doubt we may believe that he must have said it in aid of the souls of these criminals, since from one of them he received a most signal favour. Hardly had he arrived opposite to