CHAPTER V.

Q. What did your Godfathers and Godmothers promise for you at your Baptism?

A. They did promise and vow three Things in my Name. First, that I should renounce the Devil and all his Works, the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked World.

IT was the fourth evening of the assembly at the manor-house, when the lady of the manor thus addressed the young people.-"What, my dear young friends, is the third question and answer in the Church Catechism?" One of the young people immediately repeated the following words.

"Q. What did your godfathers and godmothers promise for you in your baptism?

"A. They did promise and vow three things in my name. First, that I should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.'

Here the lady of the manor interrupted the young speaker, saying, "You have now, my dear, repeated as much of the answer as we shall have leisure to explain this evening; we will therefore postpone the rest to a further occasion. We are now come to that vow which was made for you at your baptism, and which you are about to take upon yourselves in the presence of God and the Church. Hear what the address of the Bishop will be to you upon this subject. Do ye here, in the presence of God and of this congregation, renew the solemn promise and vow that was made in your name at your baptism, ratifying and confirming the same in your own persons, and acknowledging yourselves bound to believe and to do all those things which your godfathers and godmothers then undertook for you?' To which every

one of you must audibly answer, 'I do.' (See Order of Confirmation.)

"Now, my dear young people," proceeded the lady, "I call upon you to consider the amazing importance of the undertaking which you have before you. And I am sorry to intimate, that of the multitudes who take upon themselves this solemn obligation there is perhaps not one in a hundred who ever afterwards give it a single serious thought. This remark I make, not to encourage a spirit of censoriousness, which every Christian must hold in abhorrence; but, once for all, to induce you not to follow the world, but to judge and act according to the will of God and the tenor of Scripture. If you follow the world, you are not of God. If you run with the multitude, with the multitude you will be condemned. For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matt. vii. 13, 14.) Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor. vi. 17, 18.)

The young ladies looked seriously on hearing this remark, but no one spoke: upon which the lady of the manor proposed that they should immediately proceed to an examination of the baptismal vow, the first part of which is the renunciation of the devil and all his works. -"What we learn from Scripture concerning this evil one," said she, " is, that he is an apostate angel, the implacable enemy and tempter of the human race, and especially hostile to believers, whom he desires to devour. He is called Abaddon in Hebrew, and Apollyon in Greek, that is, the destroyer. He is also denominated the angel of the bottomless pit, the prince of this world, the prince of darkness, a deceiver, a liar, a murderer, a tormentor; a being whose works are all that is opposed to good, and all that is hateful to God. We are taught to believe," proceeded she, "that the chief aim and object of this evil spirit is to exalt himself, and to depress the Deity; and that one of the chief means by which he works the destruction of man, is, by inducing

him to exalt the idol self even to the throne of the Almighty."

In this place, one of the young ladies, namely, Miss Anna Maria, remarked, that she had heard a friend say that Satan had not the same power in these days which he formerly possessed.

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My dear young lady," replied the lady of the manor, one of the great arts of this grand deceiver, is, so to withdraw himself occasionally from our observation, that at the very time when he is perhaps carrying on those operations which are most effectually destructive of our happiness, he may excite in us a doubt even of his existence. It is wonderful with what nicety this arch deceiver adapts his temptations to the circumstances of the tempted. They who travel into foreign countries, and there strictly observe the state of the people among whom they sojourn, will not only have occasion to marvel at the power of Satan abroad, but will also become better judges of what he is doing at home. From the constant change of habits to which travellers are liable, and which naturally serves to emancipate them from the bands of custom and prejudice, they must (if they are so happy as to live under the influence of pious principles) unavoidably become impartial and clear-sighted observers of all that is amiss in their own land as well as in distant countries; whence they will be constrained to acknowledge, that although the arts of Satan may be more apparent in heathen lands, yet that there is perhaps no country on earth in which his influence operates in a more marvellous manner than in our own enlightened nation."

On hearing this assertion, Miss Anna Maria, and one or two of the elders of the party, looked earnestly and enquiringly at the lady of the manor; when she thus proceeded to prove the truth of the assertion she had made.-

"In those gloomy regions of midnight darkness," said she, which the light of the Gospel has as yet been unable to penetrate-such as the burning plains of Africa, the wilds of America, the Eastern Archipelago, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, together with those parts of the East still unvisited by the Christian missionaryin all these places Satan appears with little disguise;

governing the people, as it were, in his own name, and, through the instrumentality of numberless abominable idols, exacting the performance of many bloody and obscene rites. In these dark corners of the earth, the enemy of mankind requires no elegant arts to set forth his abominations; but holds communication with wizards and witches in his own proper character, keeping men's minds in a state of absolute thraldom through their superstitious observance of omens, and prodigies, and frightful dreams. In countries a little raised above this extreme of blindness and ignorance-such, for instance, as the Mahometan countries-he finds it necessary to assume some kind of cloak, for the purpose of partially biding his cloven foot. In such places he puts on the profession of morality, while he perverts the reasoning powers of man to the vilest purposes; puffing up his servants with the pride of intellect and human learning, yet leaving them as entirely the children of hell as he found them. In Roman Catholic countries, he allows a nearer approach to the truth-making use of names honoured and loved by all Christians; calling in the assistance of sacred harmony, magnificent architecture, exquisite statuary, and impressive painting, with all the pomp of splendid robes and solemn processions; exhibiting the Scripture emblem of the prayers of the saints ascending in fragrant clouds to the arched roofs of their temples, accompanied with the most imposing appearances of sanctity and devotion: in a word, the wolf there assumes the whole garb and semblance of the lamb. And here I cannot but remark, how amazing has been the skill and cunning of Satan, in first raising up, and then upholding the Roman Catholic system, that unparalleled system of delusion, by which the progress of Christianity has been strangely retarded for nearly two thousand years!

But even this amazing effort of diabolical skill is surpassed by the manoeuvres he now employs," proceeded the lady," in retarding the progress of that divine light which has dawned on our own country for several centuries, and which, we trust, will gradually diffuse itself through the surrounding nations. One of these manœu

vres of our arch enemy," continued the lady, " and not one of the least refined, is that withdrawing of himself

into the back-ground, which we noticed before: insomuch that his very existence is become a question with irreligious persons in this country; while even the more pious are not seldom heard to assert, that his power is greatly diminished in these latter ages of the Church. Satan is aware that we are now too much enlightened to be led away with stories of witchcraft, and evil omens ; the time for these things, at least with us, is wholly past by. The enemy has, therefore, changed his ground of attack: so that, instead of employing a system of terror in order to render men subservient to his will, he now allures them to his purpose by vanity, self-love, and other secret motives, which prove equally if not more abundantly successful. I will not say much of the allurements of pleasure in this place, because I trust that none here will ever think of putting themselves in the way of what are called public amusements; though I think it right, in this connexion, simply to remark, that public amusements and exhibitions are now brought to a degree of perfection which renders them a very powerful engine in the hand of Satan for the destruction of 'men's souls. Our theatrical amusements particularly, which were formerly grossly indelicate, are now set forth with a kind of mock sentiment, the fallacy of which few young persons can detect; but which, when admitted into the mind, never fail to fill it with false views of right and wrong, exciting a thousand delusive feelings, and effectually drawing the heart from God.

"Another art of Satan in this Christian and refined country," continued the lady of the manor, where innumerable individuals and societies are exerting themselves in the cause of religion, is that of not openly opposing any of these, but of destroying their effect by sowing discord among them, and employing one set of well-meaning persons in weakening the hands and marring the usefulness of another. And here," said the lady of the manor, "I must finish my review of these works of our infernal enemy, by pointing out what I consider his master-piece of cunning; namely, the address with which he hath upheld, for so many ages, the credit and honour of the ancient writings of the heathen world. It is no doubt by this and the consequent contempt poured upon the sacred writers, that the Roman