mers of all religion, the more timid and sensitive are terrified by the daring abominations of the latter into a willingness to take shelter beneath the popish banner. I see the Antichrist of the last days rising into gigantic stature, and seeing him I tremble.'

Uncle, when I glance at that part of the newspaper called the Court Circular, and run over the names that perpetually occur there, and class under their respective heads those who openly scorn all religious observances, and those who worship in the mass-house, I am struck with wonder and dismay.'

'And at the same time your heart bears witness to the success of a plan devised by Satan himself to hasten our ruin. That principle which from your cradle was inculcated both by example and by precept, to which the word of God subsequently was found to lend the sanction of divine authority, making it equally a duty as a delight-that principle, niece, your loyalty, seems like a tender flower beat upon by the storm, trembling and bending, and looking vainly round for something to shelter its head and to strengthen its root.'

'Dear uncle! Its root is fixed in the word of God -no Christian can be disloyal.'

'No, God forbid! The awful struggle of the present day consists in no small measure in the effort to place in a right view the relative position of royalty. There is no charm in the title, the functions, the prerogatives of sovereignty, to supply the lack of wise and faithful counsellors; and in a monarchy so limited and fenced about as ours is, the sagest, most experienced of mature men, would find his power and influence rendered abortive in good, were he denied the privilege of choosing such helpers in the

difficult work of governing a great empire. What, then, must be the disadvantages surrounding a youthful, inexperienced female, unsuspicious of the hollow-heartedness that lies couched beneath a mask, and so encircled by a cordon of deep deception, that nothing can reach her royal ear or eye until it have undergone the contaminating process of passing through that medium? Oh, surely the foul attempt to alienate from that young maiden the hearts of a loyal, prayerful people, should operate more powerfully in drawing those hearts closer to her, and redoubling those prayers on her behalf, than could the delightful spectacle of a court and cabinet the very reverse of what they now are.'

I wish the case was so regarded, uncle; those evil persons have laboured to rob us of our Queen, and our Queen of her true subjects.'

Ay: the diabolical plot at which all England stands aghast, was not planned, and matured, and executed, merely to wrest from an innocent lady her fair fame. It had an origin as dark and as deep as the profoundest dungeons of the Inquisition. If the secret was revealed, and the web of iniquity unravelled to its first-spun filament, you would find at its root the envenomed mark of Ignatius Loyola deeply branded. See how the noble, open-hearted brother of the victim has been foiled at every turn, met in his anxious search by an intangible mock, and baffled by such consummate finesse as never was found to exist save in the atmosphere of genuine Popery, refined by the superhuman subtlety of the Jesuit.'

'But to what end, uncle, was this conspiracy formed, and carried into effect?'

'It never was carried into effect. The noble victim met it as they had never calculated she could possibly do, because cowardly guilt cannot even conceive the bold and beauteous bearing with which innocence can confront it. She broke through the accursed net, ere it could extend its fatal meshes beyond her own harmless head, and died in the struggle-but died a conqueror. By this dispensation the torn and trampled snare is held'up, a warning to the country. But with the wickedness of the old serpent himself, its weavers make the unsightly ruin aid their purpose of bringing the sacred person of royalty into suspicion and contempt. If the real criminal were discovered it would go nigh to undo the mischief that has cost them such infinite toil to carry so far. They are checked, but not yet driven backward.'

'Uncle, it reminds me of the terrible web spread by the giant-spider of South American woods, and which is sufficiently strong to entangle a small bird. In the present instance a dove has passed through on her heavenward flight, breaking the web, but inhaling death in an atmosphere poisoned by the baf fled reptile who spun it.'

You have been censured for openly enrolling yourself among the partizans of a cause where the opposing minority, contemptible in numbers, are all-powerful in other respects.'

That cause, uncle, is the cause of my country, the cause of my queen, the cause of my religion. The powerful minority of whom you speak are ruining the country, degrading the sovereign, and labouring to destroy the Protestant faith.'

'Indeed, if we look upon the recent appointments to places of high trust and power, we must needs

own the latter to be true. Not for any predilection on the part of those individuals for our religion more than another, or, I fear, for any religion more than for none at all, but just because the papacy has attained to a political position among us which renders their tenure of office dependent on its will. I am sick at heart when contemplating the scene.'

'Yet do not turn from it. There is one view of the matter worthy your notice, in order to spread the knowledge of an interesting fact as widely as possible.'

'Let us have it.'

Most Englishmen, uncle, have a strong prejudice in favour of a certain document called Magna Charta.' 'Ay, and most English women, and English children too, I hope. Go on.'

'The rude Barons of Runnymede forced that charter from a reluctant king, and the pope was so shocked at the proceeding that he fulminated a bull, declaring the said charter null and void, and anathematizing those who procured, and who enforced its observance. Now, uncle, it is, alas! too certain that many who care not one straw for their Bibles, and who would go to mass as readily as to church or meeting, have a great value for Magna Charta, as the bulwark of their civil liberties: nay, they would die in defence of the privileges it secures to them. Ought we not to inform these people that the pope's bull remains in force to this day; and that in the estimation, yea the conscientious conviction of Messrs. Wyse, Shiel, O'Ferrall, my lords of Fingall and Surrey, and all other Romanists who have recently received appointments in government and in the palace-in the estimation of all these, and all of their

creed, this Magna Charta of ours is not only a dead letter, but a wicked, sinful, accursed thing, in no way binding upon them or others, but rather entailing temporal and eternal penalties on all who shall attempt to enforce its provisions when the time shall have arrived for recognising that religion which O'Connell so affectionately presses on us, which her Majesty's ministers so openly patronize, and which a great body of the people are disposed to regard as equally good with what they now profess.'

The fact you mention is well known, but the propriety of explaining it among the humbler classes may not be so generally considered. It is one of those things that, properly brought forward, do much good in their place. Civil liberty is a precious boon: an Englishman is so familiarized with it, as his birthright, that he no more calculates how he could exist without it than how he could breathe in an exhausted receiver. Yet most certain it is that every popish appointment, every instance of patronage extended to that wily apostacy is a direct step towards the rescinding of Magna Charta.'

'I wish our clergymen would declare it from the pulpit; particularly when the poor misguided Chartists are present. It is the more necessary, because, on a recent occasion at Norwich, an immense body of them, amounting to several thousands, attended the Popish chapel, by the priest's invitation, and were informed by him that all their grievances, real or imaginary, sprang out of the Reformation.'

'Alas, that the emissaries of Satan should be so much wiser in promoting their master's cause than the ministers of Christ! A fatal delusion rests on our pulpits generally, silencing the preacher's voice,