when the fame of every traducer is forgotten! Perish the grovelling sophistry, which, to gain the applause of a day, wantonly sacrifices both Right and Reason. Look at the moral characters of our Romish "teachers," and compare them with the Albigensians, or any other class of Christians. "They shall be known by their fruit," is the Gospel standard. "The European, Asian, and African denominations that dissented from Popery, were four times more numerous than the partizans of Romanism, when, prior to the Reformation, the Papacy shone in all its glory. Popery was never embraced by more than a fifth part of Christendom. The West, and especially the East, were crowded by the opponents of the Romish superstition, despotism, and absurdity. Idolatry and error, indeed, except among the Waldenses, prevailed through the European nations, and reigned in the realms of the Papacy with uncontrolled sway. But the Waldenses, who were numerous, held up, in the Western world, a steady light, and illumined the minds of many. The Oriental Christians, more numerous than the Waldenses, opposed with firmness and unanimity the tyranny and corruption of Romanism. All these overspreading the Eastern and Western world, and resisting the usurpations of Pontifical despotism, far out-numbered the sons of European error, superstition and Popery."-Edgar's Variations of Popery. "The lives of the Clergy, exempted from secular jurisdiction, and corrupted by wealth and idleness, were become a scandal to religion, and an outrage to decency. While they professed chastity, and prohibited under the severest penalties any of the ecclesiastical orders from contracting unlawful wedlock, the bishops set the example of the most shameless profligacy before the inferior clergy; avowedly kept their harlots, provided their natural sons with benefices, and gave their daughters in marriage to the sons of the nobility and principal gentry. We need not appeal to the testimony of Reformers the truth is registered in Acts of Parliament.* Also among the records of legitimation and in the confession of their own writers.”+M'Crie's Life of John Knox. "The Visitors of the Religious Houses having received their commissions and instructions, were despatched into different parts of the Kingdom at the same time, that the monks might have as little warning of their approach as possible. They executed their commissions with zeal and diligence, and made some curious discoveries in every house, not much to the honor of its inhabitants. In *Wilkins, Concilia, tom. IV. Keeth's Hist. Pref. XI, † Lord Haile's Notes on Ancient Scottish Poems.

making these discoveries they were greatly indebted to the violent factions and animosities which reigned among the nuns and monks, who informed against one another, and impeached their Superiors. Accounts of their proceedings were transmitted by the Visitors to the VicarGeneral, and contained sufficient materials to render the monasteries completely infamous, and the objects of universal detestation for their gross superstition and absurd idolatry, their infernal cruelty, their shameless impositions on the credulity of the people, their abandoned unnatural incontinency, their drunkenness, gluttony, and other vices. Some of the old Abbots and Friars did not conceal their amours, which they knew to be impossible. The holy Father the Prior of Maiden Bradley assured the Visitors that he had only married six of his sons and one of his daughters out of the goods of the priory as yet; but that several more of his children were now grown up and would soon be marriageable. He produced a dispensation from the Pope permitting him to keep a mistress; and he acquainted them that he took none but young maidens to be his mistresses, the handsomest that he could procure; and when he was disposed to change, he got them good husbands. But the page of history must not be stained with the abominations contained in the Report of these Visitors."-Dr. Henry. "There is almost nothing forbidden that is not dispensed with for money. Shameful to relate! they give the priests permission to have concubines, and to live with their harlots, who have children by them, upon paying an annual tribute. And in some places they oblige the priests to pay this tax, saying they may keep a concubine if they please."-16th century.-Claude D'Espence, an eminent Roman Catholic Divine. "Forasmuch as manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living, is daily used and committed in abbies, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns; and albeit, many continual visitations have been heretofore had by the space of two hundred years and more, for an honest, charitable reformation of such unthrifty, carnal, and abominable living, yet, nevertheless, little or no amendment is hitherto had, but their vicious living shamefully increaseth and augmenteth," &c.-Statutes, 27 Henry VIII. cap. 28. Preamble as quoted by an able Historian. "The whole body of the clergy were defamed by reason of their luxury, that while the civil magistrates would not suffer any layman to have a concubine, yet among the clergy it was so common a thing to have them, that amidst a hundred priests not more than three or four could be found who either kept not whores or were not

married, the one secretly, the other publicly."-Deposition of the Duke: of Bavaria's Ambassador before the Council of Trent. "My Royal Master, Charles IX. is constrained to complain of the lewd lives of the Ecclesiastics."-The Cardinal of Loraine's Speech before the Council of Trent. 1545. "Nothing is more effectual to the destruction of the Church than a corrupted clergy. The sheep must discern the things on which he feeds, even if presented by the shepherd himself."-De Potestate Eccles. Wessel. "In many parts, the people were delighted at seeing a priest keep a mistress, that the married women might be safe from his seductions.-Nicol. De Clemangis, de Præsulib: Simoniacis. D'Aubignè. "Several Abbots imitated the manners of the East, and had their harems." -Meteren. Nederl. Hist. VIII. Hottinger. Eccles. IX. "Priests, consorting with dissolute characters, frequented the taverns, played at dice, and crowned their orgies with quarrels and blasphemy.”—Mandate of Hugo, Bishop of Constance, 1517. "It was clear that the woman and my gallant of a priest understood the miracle (St. Croix) thoroughly, and made it a cover to their intercourse."-Farel, 15th Century. "The crimes of these Romish prelates are so enormous, that I cannot describe them."-Francis Lambert, a Monk, and Son of the Apostolical Secretary. 15th Century. "At collection time (the parishioners of Meaux stated) the Franciscans begin their rounds: a single preacher will visit four or five parishes in a day, always delivering the same sermon, not to feed the souls of his hearers, but to fill his belly and his purse."-1520. Acta Mart. "No one can imagine what sins and infamous actions are committed in Rome; they must be heard and seen to be credited. Thus the people habitually say, "If there be a hell, Rome is built over it; whence issues every kind of sin."-Luther. Opp. XXII. 1512. "Subjoined is a faithful picture of religion and morals in France at the beginning of the Reformation. Theft had been committed before the altar, seduction practised in the confessional, poison mingled with the consecrated elements, adultery perpetrated at the foot of the cross.”— D'Aubignè. "The scandalous examples and the crimes of the Court of Rome are the cause why Italy has lost every principle of piety and all religious feeling."-Machiavelli. "All priests found in houses of illfame shall be unfrocked."-Decree of the Council of Schaffhausen. Müller's Reliq., III. "There are three things that are usually brought away from Rome: a bad conscience, a disordered stomach, and an empty purse. Rome also traffics in the Grace of Christ, ecclesiastical dignities,

and women."-Ro. Trin. Hütten. 15th Century. "In several places, the priest paid the bishop a regular tax for the woman with whom he lived, and for each child he had by her. A German bishop said publicly one day, at a great entertainment, that in one year eleven thousand priests had presented themselves before him for that purpose."—Erasmus. "The 'Revels of Easter' held a distinguished place in the records of the Church. As the festival of the resurrection of Christ ought to be celebrated with joy, the preachers studied in their sermons everything that might raise a laugh among their hearers. One imitated the note of the cuckoo; another hissed like a goose. One dragged to the altar a layman robed in a monk's frock; a second related the most indecent stories; and a third recounted the tricks of St. Peter, and among others, how in a tavern he had cheated his host by not paying his reckoning. The lower clergy took advantage of this opportunity to ridicule their superiors. The churches were converted into a mere stage for mountebanks, and the priests into buffoons."-Ecolampad., De Risu Paschali. D'Aubigné. What a confluence of facts against Rome!

Leaving the middle ages, we return to more recent events. No well regulated mind can contemplate without abhorrence the treasonable projects of Papists during the reigns of Willliam III. and George I. Whether to regain the Throne for "Saint" James, or to disport the less plausible claims of the Pretender before public opinion, those lawless schemes never enlisted the sympathies of Englishmen. Imagine a Jacobite Priest expounding the text "Go, see now this cursed woman (the Queen) and bury her." Such was Popish sorrow for the most amiable of all departed Royalty. The common axiom "villany frustrates its own end" is faithfully realized. All the latitude hitherto enjoyed by the Papal oligarchy together with the power of that religion over the minds of the people have been wrested from the Priesthood by their own abuses. Some historians, among them Lord Macaulay have attempted to prove that Romanism accomplished the abolition of villanage. This assertion is false in fact. Apart from abstract principles of freedom, the gradual extinction of slavery is natural to all nations. Lord Brougham once eloquently declared "That it was written by the finger of God on the heart of man." The learned and the sacerdotal orders necessarily could assist the social emancipation of the people in an inverse proportion to their retarding power. The absolute baseness of employing those

material fetters which shackle the limbs of the victim is not more obvious

than transfixing the human mind at the lowest possible stage of intelligence. Rome never manifested a desire to improve the mental capacities of our race. On the contrary her polity has been to keep the understanding at starvation point. Such writers as Milner and Bossuet would dare argue that the Knight Templars-those Jesuits of the dark ages were the heralds of modern civilization even though their order was suppressed in 1307-12. Be the fact once more remembered, that the dawn of the Reformation though ostensibly traced up to Luther, was a latent principle implanted in the minds and hearts of the people which only required a masterly hand to arouse it. The perfidy of Rulers and a licentious Priesthood at length called that dormant element into action. Wherever Protestantism is the nucleus of power, the will of the people must be respected. Magna Charta was unquestionably a great Romanist achievement; the Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus were equally so with Protestantism. The latter renovated our constitution, and rescued it from the serfdom of the Stuart dynasty; indeed, whilst the Truth kept advancing, the feudal policy declined. The Comte de Montalembert boasts "that Catholic barons got Magna Charta," implying when England was the submissive daughter of the Holy See. The country had been long under an Interdict, and the people were in a transition state. Strictly speaking, the Great Charter was a political victory of the thirteenth century. Nothing can be ascribed to the prevailing religion of the age in furtherance of that object. Pope Innocent III. actually forbade King John under pain of anathema to respect the liberties he had solemnly confirmed at Runnymede, whilst the priests declared that the forty-fwe nobles who demanded these mighty constitutional privileges were instigated by Satan. But as previously observed, and now only reiterated because the sequence of confutation demands it, nationalities arise to the surface of popular opinion in defiance of all subjection. To comprehend the magnitude of this fact look at past epochs in our history. Rome for ages cultivated her superstition by keeping the masses ignorant. The eloquent pen of Dr. Robertson drew anything but a flattering sketch of monkish sway with "its four centuries of profound ignorance and moral degradation." Instead of translating the Ancient Scripture MSS. and submitting the Divine laws to public gaze, the priests secreted those priceless gems in their monasteries. Was that the true way to uproot villanage? Lust of power sustained the mental slavery of the Papists' precisely as avarice is now its foundation, whether among Spaniards,