volumes, to exemplify the end to which such beginnings lead. Few young ladies in the whirl of education have leisure systematically to study those important questions, which will now be constantly obtruded unasked on their notice, but which involve the whole happiness for time and eternity of themselves, as well as the whole peace of their parents and relatives; therefore the author has endeavoured in this narrative, as well as in her previous work on Popish Legends, to place the result of many years' prayerful reading in a small compass before those she earnestly wishes to serve, if they will favour her with their kind consideration.

It is hoped that the strong good sense of English minds may long continue to be their salutary protection against the Church of "Our Lady Star of the Sea!" a name much more fit for the Arabian Nights than for Christian teachers, but which is very attractive to young lovers of the imaginative and picturesque, as well as the whole gorgeous paraphernalia of Romish pageantry. The author was favoured with a description lately of a Popish dignitary entering one of the provincial towns of England in state, the first carriage drawn by four

grey horses, and another following. At a levee which ensued the ladies kissed hands! and the clergymen knelt. Such more than royal homage claimed and bestowed had so bewildering an effect on the imagination of some excitable spectators, that several Protestant ladies conformed to this new custom, yielded to this total prostration of female dignity, and kissed the diamond ring, emblematical of popish authority. In return for their almost delirious homage a benignant hope was expressed, not very likely to be disappointed, that they shall soon become members of the Popish flock. There is a keen canvass constantly going on to induce young people to attend such dramatic scenes; the author herself has been frequently invited to witness them; but the doing so is at a hazard which nothing can justify any one for incurring. There is a strange influence in vast pretensions which few have the moral courage to resist; and if a Grand Mufti of London and Westminster, bringing his diploma, were to appear in England, claiming all the honours due to Grand Mufti-ism, the safest plan would be to avoid him, as those once in his presence, if invited by a card inscribed in large characters "To MEET THE GRAND.

reverence.

MUFTI," would feel, if they went, partly pledged to meet him on the terms expected, and would find it very difficult not in some degree to fulfil his expectations of receiving perfectly prostrate The effect of example, assisted by the influence of a gorgeous dress and a diamond ring, probably led people on the occasion specified into lengths of temporary enthusiasm which they did not previously contemplate; but the kissing of a Popish dignitary's hand, or of the ring that adorns it, if meant as a religious act, is a virtual acknowledgment of Papal supremacy; and if as a mere demonstration of drawingroom politeness, the ladies then reverse what has usually been towards them the order of etiquette. Protestant ladies entering such a scene, place themselves in a very false position. indeed, by thus assisting to engraft a foreign supremacy as well as a foreign religion on the English tree of civil and religious liberty.

Those girls who expatiate in joyous freedom along the daisied meadows of England, the sun shining over their heads, and the flowers blooming around their path, would not be easily persuaded to make their permanent abode at the bottom of a coal-pit; nevertheless if any persons had an interest in persuading them to

do so, the most urgent advice of their best. friends would be, not to approach the verge, not to listen to those who would entice them onwards, and if tempted rashly to descend one step, that they should first look down into the very lowest depths, that they might fully anticipate the end from the beginning, and know to what they were consigning themselves. Therefore the author having lost no opportunity to inform herself on the subject, has most humbly endeavoured on the present occasion to raise a finger-post which shall give due warning of a danger impending over every individual girl in England now, to her freedom and her happiness. Not many years ago, the mother of a happy cheerful family, known to the author, expressed a wish, for once, to see all the wonders of the Popish ritual, and after some slight opposition from her Protestant husband, she obtained leave to take her daughters there, and went. Nothing more was said between the parents upon that subject till several months afterwards, when it was unexpectedly discovered that the young ladies clandestinely wore crucifixes. Then the unhappy father, on investigation, to his astonishment ascertained that their visits to the chapel

and to the priests had been secretly continued, till his whole family around him had become Papists. He died soon after, literally of a broken heart, his wife and daughters live now in a foreign convent, and his son, relinquishing his whole inheritance, became a Popish priest.

Who has not read, with a just indignation, that it was necessary for the Principal of Glenalmond College to publish a letter in the newspapers remonstrating with a Popish priest for clandestinely lending books of Romish theology to his pupils? and in an English public school it was discovered lately, to the inexpressible grief of the parents, that two pupils had been privately perverted by similar means; yet British fathers abroad, placing their children in foreign convents for the benefit of accomplishments, do so on a mere vague understanding that their religion shall not be tampered with! They might as judiciously dip a white dress into the dyer's vat of black, on the positive assurance that it shall come out white again! The author could name one young lady of fortune, who was entrusted to the care of a Popish governess, on a solemn agreement that she was never to be spoken to on the subject of religion; but the unfortunate