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of the clergy, have led to many strange disclosures. details of some of these cases, which have been related to me by Catholic gentlemen of high standing, who have the most full and direct evidence of facts, might be given, were it not that they relate to acts so abominably vile and indecent, that one can scarce revert to them in his thoughts, and much less think of making them public, without a feeling of deep and poignant shame for the corruption and wickedness of man. In looking over the list of what are called " reserved cases," that is, the grosser forms of sin, for which the bishops alone can give absolution, and which one often meets with written down and pasted on the interior of the confession-boxes, and seeing there recorded such crimes as incest, in its various forms, bestiality, and whatever else should condemn one to a prison or a gallows, and yet any or all of these freely forgiven on condition of some selfrighteous penance, or of paying a priest to chant a given number of masses for the benefit of souls in purgatory, I have ceased to wonder at the demoralizing effects of the Catholic religion, and have also seen the necessity of the Inquisition, in order to stifle public opinion and free inquiry as to the impositions of the church and the vices of the priesthood. In that part of Spain where I have spent the last month, the common price of a mass is twenty cents, but the people are taught, that the more they pay above this sum the more influence the mass will have, in delivering souls from the pains of purgatory. In conversing with a young lady a few days since, she remarked that she had an excellent confessor, and that such another could not be found, for she had made a strict agreement with him that he should ask her no questions, and on no other conditions would she go to confession at all, for the priests were commonly very impudent where they did not fear to be so, meaning by this, what one may easily satisfy himself to be true in Spain and Italy, namely, that the priests freely use the secret and confidential intercourse of the confessional, in seducing from the paths of virtue, and in gratifying their own licentiousness. Some time since there was presented me, from the library of a priest, a Latin work of near 600 pages, which has passed through several editions, the object of which is to prepare young men for acting as confessors, by solving all those questions which might arise in examining those who confess. Several medical men who have examined it, have freely ad

mitted that in the lengthened minuteness of its details, and in the needless and offensive grossness with which it dwells on those acts and vices which ought not so much as to be named in common intercourse, there is nothing in their professional books that will at all compare with it. If the subjects there so fully discussed are matters of lawful, private, and confidential conversation between the priest and the female penitent, every facility is offered, at least as far as social intercourse is concerned, for any possible amount of seduction and vice.

The leading steps have been taken for abolishing all the nunneries in Spain, by breaking up those where the number of inmates is less than twenty, and giving permission to all other nuns freely to leave their convents. The next measure will probably be, as in the case of the convents of friars, to suppress them all, the government seizing upon their property, and they returning to their friends, and to the discharge of those social and domestic duties which both the laws of nature and of nature's God justly require of them. Nunneries were not, as many suppose, mere places of refuge for the poor, the friendless, and the distressed, but the inmates were required to bring with them wealth enough to furnish an income adequate to their support. In Spain the amount necessary for this purpose varied in different convents, from five or six hundred up to several thousand dollars.

Before any steps were taken for the suppression of the friars, or other bold and decisive measures of the present Spanish government, there were many wise and observing men, who sincerely desired an efficient reform, but who thought that the mass of the people were so wedded to these abuses, and were so far under the influence of the priests, that nothing could be safely attempted. Every advance that has been made, however, has clearly shown, that there was an entire mistake, as to fact, in supposing that the mass of the people were attached to the rites and ceremonies of the Catholic church. Indeed, so far was this from being true, that the people have taken the lead of the government, in the work of religious reform; and in the case of the friars, not content with driving them from their convents, they savagely murdered no small number of them, on the ground that they had ever been the active and efficient supporters of despotism, and the untiring enemies of civil and religious liberty, and the rights of man. It was, too, a well-known fact in the his

tory of Spain, that the religion of Mahomet had been far more kind and tolerant in its character and influence, than that of the Romish Church, and that, while the system of the prophet of Mecca had prevailed, the country had greatly increased in wealth and population, and the arts and sciences had exceedingly flourished; but that when the Catholic faith again triumphed, with the Inquisition for her handmaid, she combined in herself the properties of a deadly incubus and a bloodthirsty vampire; at once paralyzing the energies and enterprise of the people, and sacrificing the lifeblood of the nation, on the altar of cold, savage, and relentless bigotry and superstition.

There seems to be a general impression, among liberal and intelligent men in Spain, who were formerly timid as to the work of reform, that, as far as the feelings of the people are concerned, there would now be no difficulty in dissolving all connexion between Spain and the Pope. A gentleman of this class told me a short time since, that a few days previous an old man from the country came to him, to ask his advice as to the marriage of his daughter, with a cousin of hers. Now as this was within those degrees of relationship which make it necessary to obtain a dispensation from the Pope, in order to make a marriage lawful, and, aside from the delay thus caused, the old man could not command the sum of one hundred dollars, which His Holiness charges for granting such favors; he therefore very naturally asked my friend, if he thought that Spain would have any future connexion with the Pope, and if not, whether it would not be safe for his daughter to marry without a dispensation. "They say," he added, "that the Pope is an impostor, but I have always believed in him, and do so now; still, if the government should say to-morrow, that we are no longer to believe in him, why then I should believe in him no more." Large numbers of such Catholics may be met with in Spain, who have no respect or reverence for the forms of the national church, except what is caused by fear of civil disadvantages, or of the pains and penalties of the law. Still, I have been surprised to find how many retain a deep and strong regard for religious worship and duties as a matter between man and his God; and they inquire, too, with the utmost eagerness, respecting all the minute details of Protestant faith and practice, and express their warmest approbation of them. Much of this feeling doubtless arises from selfish motives, for in a

church, where, with us, a single clergyman would perform all the necessary duties, they are often burdened with twenty or thirty who give but little instruction; while some of the large Cathedrals have several hundred clergymen, of different grades, connected with them. On the peculiarities of the Catholic and Protestant systems of faith, I have had much free, familiar, and pleasant discussion, with both the priests and the people. Some of the clergy seem to feel more deeply than those who hear them, the uselessness and absurdity of chanting Latin prayers, which they themselves scarcely understand. A priest speaking to me of this practice one day, very justly styled it "tonteria," that is, foolishness, or a piece of folly. Indeed, the infallibility of the Catholic church, and the blind and obstinate manner in which she adheres to all abuses, was the main cause of the Reformation in the time of Luther, and, if I mistake not, is the millstone about her neck, which is soon to sink her in the depths of ruin and disgrace. What seems wise and politic in one age, is the height of folly and madness in another, and any cause, which burdens itself with the errors and absurdities of past generations, and fondly clings to them, must, in the end, be overwhelmed and crushed beneath their weight. There was, for example, a semblance of wis

dom in the decree of the Council of Toulouse in the thirteenth century, prohibiting the laity from possessing the Scriptures, on the ground that they were in danger of being led astray, by the use of heretical translations of the Bible. But no such apology can be urged for this oft-repeated prohibition, now that the Church can easily supply, in great abundance, such translations of the Scriptures as she herself might approve, and which supply, if she does not furnish it, will soon be effected by Protestants, with their translations.

The Catholic sermons, in Spain and Italy, are divided into two classes, the moral, or such as treat of points of doctrine and duty, and the panegyrics, or eulogies on the saints. The latter class are by far the most numerous, and were formerly paid for in Spain by the civil authorities of the respective towns where they were delivered. The Virgin Mary, and her husband, St. Joseph, are each honored with seven or eight of these discourses, and so on with the other prominent saints in the calendar. Those which I have heard, consisted of declamations, on the wonderful virtues

and merits of these worthies, their great influence in obtaining from God the forgiveness of our sins; and hence was inferred their high and peculiar claims to our veneration, as intercessors for us at the throne of Heaven.

The image of the saint, arrayed in gorgeous robes, and decked with tinsel and finery, occupies a conspicuous place in the centre of the church, or on the high altar; and when the service is over, the assembly show their devotion, by crowding around it and whispering their prayers, often with tears in their eyes; they humbly kiss the hem of the idol's garments, or the ends of the ribands which hang from its neck, and raise up their little children in their arms, that they too may do the same. Were I to behold a Christian assembly worshipping their Maker with the same outward signs of sincerity and earnestness as is shown to these dumb idols, I should certainly think them very devout; and after having witnessed this veneration of the saints, he who tells me that it is not idolatry, spends his breath in vain; for both merchants and missionaries tell us, that the blindest votaries of African or Hindoo superstition, make as broad and definite distinctions between the senseless images before which they bow, and the deified heroes or other spiritual beings which these idols represent, as do the followers of the Virgin Mary, and the host of inferior saints. It is, too, a striking fact in this connexion, that the king of the Sandwich Islands, in a recent interview with a Commodore of our Navy, remarked, that the reason why he expelled the Jesuit missionaries from his dominions was, not from any intended persecution of them on the ground of their religious opinions, but because they violated the laws of his kingdom, against idolatry. A little observation, and a moderate share of common sense, is worth more, on a subject of this kind, than all the subtile logic and finespun reasoning in the world; and it would doubtless be difficult to make this monarch understand the precise difference between the reverence claimed by his Jesuit neighbours for the images of the saints, and that which he and his subjects formerly paid to those tawdry, savage, grinning and horrid looking idols which may now be seen in missionary and other museums of the United States.

A gentleman who has spent many years in the South of Italy, who is familiar with the language, and often attends the Catholic churches, gave me the following account of the preachers. The most decent and devout, are those who de