kingdom of God.' The priests in Ireland look upon the unmarried daughters of their parishioners as forming a considerable proportion of their wealth; for a large share of their fees or perquisites arises from their weddings,-no female being allowed to marry out of her own parish; the priests therefore are extremely anxious to encourage matrimony, and they are frequently engaged in match makings. It being the rule or custom for the guests invited to the weddings of the better sort, to pay the priest according to their abilities, he is anxious that a large number should be invited, and that a plentiful dinner be provided at the bride's father's expense; the whiskey is so abundant on these occasions as to be sometimes brought out in cans, the priest himself partaking largely of the banquet; piping, dancing, and drinking, continues through the night. On these occasions the priest himself generally opens the dance with the bride, particularly if the collections are large. A melancholy accident not long since occurred at one of these weddings-the chimney happening to catch fire, one of the party took up a can of whiskey, which he supposed to contain water, and dashed it on the flames, the spirits instantly exploded, and blew up most of the company.

"One very bad effect must always result from the interest the priests have to promote marriages; which is, that instead of dissuading, they induce the poorest sort who can beg, borrow, or steal a guinea, to marry, without having any provision made for a family; and they thus entail poverty and mendicity on the country. I have known matches of this kind so hastily made up, that the parties contracting had not seen each other before that day, and so poor as to be obliged to borrow a guinea for the priest, for he won't take less, and if the parties should be under any church censures, he requires more. Ireland is thus over-peopled with a poor, ignorant, superstitious peasantry; and what is worse, there is no prospect of any change in their circumstances, while popery holds them in her iron grasp, whose interest it is to keep them superstitious, by keeping them in ignorance. Nothing except a national system of general education for the poor, agreeably to the plans of the Hibernian school society, where the scriptures alone are made the reading book, can effectually and finally promote the moral, intellectual, and religious improvement of Ireland, and this subject is well worthy the attention of the legislature. J. A."

This plain, unvarnished narrative exhibits such a view of popery, as ought to excite universal detestation, not against the poor deluded people, but at the conduct of their priests, whose sole business seems to be, to maintain the reign of ignorance and error, to rob the people of their little hard-earned property, and to fatten upon the spoil: yet it has lately become fashionable to eulogize these priests as if they were the most virtuous men in the world. Panegyrists of their own communion boast of the "spotless purity" of their character; Protestant senators, in both houses, vie with one another in expressions of commendation, or in tacitly admitting the extraordinary merit of these ghostly deceivers; and it is esteemed of so much importance to Ireland to preserve the breed, that a college was erected twenty-five years ago at Maynooth for the purpose, at an expense to the public, originally, of about 40,000l. and an annual charge of about 8000l. ever since. This was no doubt meant for the best; but I am persuaded nothing of the kind would have

occurred, had the real character of the priests been better known to men in power. No dissenting sect in Britain ever received such countenance and support as is thus granted to Irish Papists, and yet these Papists are incessantly complaining of being an insulted, oppressed, and persecuted people.

"In 1795," says a late writer, "Maynooth college was established by an act of parliament; by which, certain trustees were empowered to receive donations for establishing and endowing an academy for the education of persons professing the Romish religion, and to acquire lands, free from forfeiture by mortmain. Little short of 40,000l. was granted for its establishment at first; and in every subsequent session, a regular charge of 8000l. has been made to parliament for its annual support. I may add, too, that this does not appear to content them. I have heard it represented as trifling, by gentlemen of that better informed, or rather deeper initiated class of Romanists, as to faith and doctrine, which is recognised as composed of 'competent expounders ;' while the encouragement of the Protestant charter schools, has been spoken of with contempt, dislike, and jealousy." The true state of the question, by Joseph Spearing, jun. p. 229, Cork, 1816. The tithe of the money thus thrown away by Protestants, in bolstering up a system of idolatry and superstition, would go a great length in teaching the people to read the word of God, upon the economical plan of the Hibernian society; but it has not yet appeared politically necessary to teach the poor Irish to read the Bible; at least not so necessary as the maintaining a regular succession of popish priests. Candour, however, requires me to say, that in this matter there was only a choice of evils. The Maynooth college was not endowed because our government wished to encourage popery; but because it was reckoned better to have the priests educated at home, than to lay them under the necessity of going abroad for education. My opinion is, that the worst of the evils was chosen; but I do not profess to be a politician.

A correspondent has favoured me with the following recipe for making Italian soup, with which I conclude the present number. The reader will not consider it below the dignity of my work, seeing it has so close a relation to the person of the present head of the Romish church. It is extracted from Galiffico's Letters, relating to Italy and its inhabitants, 1816, 1817, translated by John Murray, London, 1820. After describing Cardinal Gonsalvi as the most popular minister that any pope ever had, the author proceeds, page 23:-"Whatever may be the liberality of the prime minister, it is not sufficient to put a stop to the most absurd superstition. Little prints of the miracles attributed to the present pope, were publicly sold in the streets of Rome; and some time before our arrival, an immense number of his shirts were sold in retail to the common people, and perhaps to better informed persons also, who fully believed that a small piece of one of them boiled in their soup, was the surest of all remedies against any disorder. I could not have credited this story, if I had not had it from a very honest merchant, who told it to me in the simplicity of his heart, as a thing of which no real Christian could entertain a doubt." It is not said whether the shirts were first washed; but it is to be presumed they were not; for washing would take the virtue out of them.

Another curious piece has come in my way this week, for which, I

see by the proof-sheet, there is room; and I insert it here, for the sake of preserving it to future times. It is what will be called a very devout prayer, by "his most Christian majesty," the king of France, on the occasion of the baptism of his young grand-nephew, the duke of Bordeaux:-"Let us invoke for him the protection of the mother of God, the queen of the angels; let us implore her to watch over his days, and remove far from his cradle the misfortunes with which it has pleased Providence to afflict his relatives, and to conduct him by a less rugged path than I have had, to eternal felicity." This act of devotion was performed, not a fortnight ago, by the sovereign of the most enlightened popish kingdom in the world. Here there is no God acknowledged but a mere creature; and if such idolatry shall be persevered in, it is probable that the young prince, if spared as long in the world, will have to go over a still more "rugged path" than that of his predecessor.

CHAPTER CXLIX.

REPLY TO AMICUS VERITATIS RESUMED. HIS PLAGIARISMS. INDULGENCE. TETZEL, AND THE POPE'S NUNCIO. WHITAKER'S ACCUSATION OF FORGERY CONFUTED. CATECHISM TRANSLATED BY DR. BOGUE. TAX OF THE APOSTOLIC CHANCERY.

SATURDAY, May 19th, 1821.

I HAVE still some accounts to settle with my long forgotten opponent, AMICUS VERITATIS, though, after the exposure which I have made of the character of popery, any farther notice of his errors may be considered almost a work of supererogation. It is necessary, however, that I keep my word, and therefore I must devote a number or two to his service.

I observe, then, in the first place, that I have found him out to be a great literary thief. I have already shown that part of his declamation about good works was stolen, without acknowledgment, from a recent English publication. (See PROT. Chap. CXXI.) And I have made such farther discoveries as lead me to doubt whether he did not pilfer the greater part of what he gave as his own. In a letter which he published in the Glasgow Chronicle, dated 25th June, 1818, (See PROT. Vol. I. Part I. page 38,) we read as follows:-" If frequency of repetition could give to misrepresentation the substance of truth, an indulgence would be of all scandalous things the most scandalous. Your correspondent seems to have adopted this principle; he conceives he may justly assume the privilege of saying what has been said by hundreds before him, and, therefore, without hesitation, condemns the practice of indulgences, in terms the most pointed and severe." Now this passage is stolen verbatim, without marks of quotation, from a pamphlet, entitled, "A Vindication of the Remarks on the Charge of the Bishop of Durham," 1807, p. 42, with only this alteration, to wit, Amicus strikes out "the bishop of Durham," and puts "your correspondent," that is, THE PROTESTANT, in his place, which, if it were not mere words, would be a very comfortable translation for the said PROTESTANT; though both church and state would be losers, if a prelate so truly venerable and estimable were to be superseded by a mere layman of the north.

AMICUS then proceeds to proclaim his own courage, in the following VOL. II.-37

terms:-"But I am not to be intimidated by a sourness of aspect: the shafts of ridicule will not in the least discompose me, and I can despise the meanness of sophistical reasoning, whilst I pity the prostitution of talent." What pity that so bold a man was so soon put to silence! and that too, by a writer so contemptible as to prostitute his little talent for the purpose of mere sophistical reasoning. Surely it would have been easy to refute such a writer; and though Amicus was denied access to the Chronicle, after I had withdrawn, he might have found means to publish his reply to the Protestant in some other way.

But we must come to matters of more importance. He said he had "endeavoured to prove that it never was a doctrine of the Catholic church that a pope or bishop could grant an indulgence to commit sin." When I first used the word "indulgence," I did it in the common English acceptation of the term,-" to grant, or be favourable to;" and there is scarcely a page of my work from the commencement, in which it is not shown that popery is favourable to the commission of sin, either by connivance or encouragement, or positive enactment. But I am aware that in the language of popish catechisms the word indulgence has a technical meaning somewhat different; though the consequence remains the same as that with which I charged it. When a man knows beforehand that he can purchase from his priest, a remission of the temporal and purgatorial punishment of his sins, the natural consequence must be, that he entertains no great dread of sin; and the indulgence operates as an encouragement to the commission of it; especially when it is considered, that exemption or relief from purgatory, necessarily implies exemption from hell, insomuch that he who obtains a plenary indulgence, entertains no dread of any future punishment.

But call it indulgence, dispensation, or what you will, the evil of which I complain, is, granting permission to do what is sinful. Of this the church of Rome is notoriously guilty, for proof of which I need not go farther back than the recent bull of the pope, which was given in my last number but one, in which power is granted to dispense with certain laws, with regard to the marriage of persons nearly related to one another. Such marriages are either sinful, or they are not; if not, why are they prohibited? and if they are sinful, the pope's authoritatively allowing them, is permission to commit sin. AMICUS triumphantly asserts, that if the popish bishops could have granted indulgence to commit sin, Henry VIII. had never professed himself a Protestant; but I cannot suppose my opponent to be so very ignorant as not to know this was the very thing that led to that event. Henry, when scarcely come to years of discretion, married his brother's widow. This was an unlawful, and a sinful thing in ecclesiastical reckoning; but he had a dispensation from the pope for doing it. Afterwards he had some real or affected qualms of conscience, on account of what he considered an incestuous connexion. He applied to the pope to dissolve the marriage, which he durst not do for fear of offending the emperor, who was the queen's brother: but he offered Henry another dispensation, namely, that he might have two wives. (See PROT. Vol. I. Part I. page 34.) Gross as Henry's notions of morality were, he was not bad enough for this; and finding that the pope would not comply with his request, he he threw off his yoke altogether, which was perhaps the wisest thing he ever did.

Amicus Veritatis attempts to evade the evidence which I had adduced of the great wickedness of his church in the article of indulgences, by doubting some of my facts, and denying others. "The doctrines or theses of Tetzel," says he, "were publicly condemned by the pope's nuncio, Miltitz, and consequently cannot be Catholic doctrine;" for the truth of which he refers me to Mosheim and others. From the following extract the reader will judge how far this is correct: speaking of Miltitz's conference with Luther, we are informed that Miltitz "loaded Tetzel with the bitterest reproaches, on account of the irregular and superstitious means he had employed for promoting the sale of indulgences, and attributed to this miserable wretch all the abuses that Luther had complained of. Tetzel, on the other hand, burdened with the iniquities of Rome, tormented with a consciousness of his own injustice and extortions, stung with the opprobious censures of the new legate, and seeing himself equally despised and abhorred by both parties, died of grief and despair. This incendiary being sacrificed as a victim to cover the Roman pontiff from reproach, Miltitz entered into a particular conversation with Luther, at Altenburgh, and, without pretending to justify the scandalous traffic in question, required only, that he would acknowledge the four following things: 1st, That the people had been seduced by false notions of indulgences: 2dly, That he (Luther) had been the cause of that seduction, by representing indulgences as much more heinous than they really were: 3dly, That the odious conduct of Tetzel alone had given occasion to these representations: and 4thly, That though the avarice of Albert, archbishop of Mentz, had set on Tetzel, yet that this rapacious tax gatherer had exceeded by far the bounds of his commission." Mosheim by Maclaine, cent. xvi. § 1.

Now, here is not a word that implies a condemnation of Tetzel's indulgences, but only of Tetzel himself. Like other doers of dirty work, he had overdone his part, and brought disgrace upon his superiors and employers. The bull was given under the authority of the pope himself, the words of which are given in the first volume of THE PROTESTANT, Part I. page 22. This Miltitz had no right or power to condemn, and he does not profess to condemn it. If he had, he must have published another bull for undeceiving the many thousands whom Tetzel had deceived. But nothing of the kind was done. The people were allowed to believe in the efficacy of the indulgence which they had received and paid for; and there is not so much as a hint that the benefit of it was affected by the irregular and superstitious means which had been used for promoting the sale.

My second proof was a letter or bull of indulgence granted by the present pope to the people of Cork. Amicus considers this so trifling and inapplicable, as hardly to require notice; but the fact is, he could not notice it in the way I called the reader to do, without divulging the truth, that that very indulgence was a permission to commit sin, for it calls itself a "plenary indulgence," and "in form of a jubilee." Let Amicus inform the reader in what manner the Papists in Ireland celebrate their jubilees, and the question will be set at rest: unless, indeed, the principle avowed by a Papist to the writer of the letter in my last number, be admitted; namely, that drunkenness and licentiousness of every description are not sins when committed on a saint's day, or day of jubilee.