a

lation, whose intellectual character and their country. Even for the glory of external condition are affected by the his regiment many a gallant soldier opinions they have been taught, or has, without hesitation, sacrificed his the institutions under which they life. To the Popish priest, the associalive and act; secondly, the class or tion into which he has entered holds body of directors and instructors. the place of a wife and children, and These, in a Popish country, assume kindred and country. The Pope, as the name of the priesthood or clergy. head of the body, is his prince, and That class or institution constitutes the association is the brotherhood Popery, just as a body of nobles and which forms the object of all his at. governing senate constitute an aristo- tachments, and the ascendency and cracy.

glory of which absorbs every sentiPassing over for an instant the ment, either of public spirit, or of selfcharacter of sanctity, or of priesthood, ishness or ambition in his nature. which it assumes, Popery, in a coun- The society, for greater efficiency try that has a civil government, like in its enterprises, divides itself into France, Prussia, or Britain, may be classes. It allocates some to special described as the system according to districts, under the name of priests and which the affairs of a certain society, bishops ; but has reserves of memor company, or association, are car. bers in monasteries, both male and feried on. The association consists of a male, ready to go forth on the business body of individuals whose object is to of the association. These add to their rule mankind, and to acquire to their other oaths a vow of poverty, which, society the largest possible command however, is a mere equivocation. It of the power and riches of a people, only means that whatever a monk has without performing any part of the belongs to his brethren of the monasbusiness, or submitting to any of the tery, who, along with himself, when not drudgery undertaken, or dangers en- in the view of the multitude, endeavour countered by the rest of the community. to pass their lives in luxurious opuYet, in those countries in which they lence. The most pestilent of the are tolerated, they endeavour to attain, whole are the Jesuits, a corps created and generally do succeed in attaining, to oppose Luther's Reformation, and to the possession of high rank, riches, who form the master-spirits who influence, and direct authority. The devise every intrigue and share in society, styled generally the Popish every conspiracy in Europe. priesthood or clergy, consists of mem. The Popish association adopt as bers received from all classes of the the groundwork of their operations community. The association is per- the Christian religion, of which they petuated by the admission of new pretend they are the only true priests; members, under the sanction of the but they do not hold themselves dignitaries of the body. The great bound by its laws and doctrines, as object of the society being to rule contained in the books written by the over the rest of the community, all Hebrew prophets and historians, or their rules and proceedings are made by those instructed by the immediate subservient to that object.

followers of Jesus of Nazareth, the On entering into the society, a man whole of which united we call the by solemn vows devotes himself to the Bible. The Popish association prepursuit of its interests exclusively, and tend that, besides what is to be found to obedience to the superior members in the Bible, they have many docof the association. He renounces trines and precepts communicated whatever may interfere with his ex- expressly to their body, by Almighty ertions to promote the influence and God. They regard with extreme aggrandizement of the body of which horror any attempt to lay open the he is becoming a member. More written scriptures to the perusal of especially, he takes a solemn vow the mass of mankind, lest they dis. against entering into marriage, lest cover the palpable inconsistency bedomestic affections and the interests of tween the written doctrine and the a wife and children should obstruct system of idolatry, usurpation, and the future business of his life, which gross superstition sanctioned by the is to extend the power of the society. association. The Jewish Rabbis were We know what efforts men have made the original inventors of this kind of for their families, their kindred, and device. They pretended that, besides

This can

the written law openly sanctioned from Mortal sins are liable to be punished Mount Sinai, a multitude of precepts by eternal torture in hell. were given and handed down to them only be avoided by the sinner confessby the traditions of the elders. Hence ing them to the priest, declaring that Jesus said, “ Ye have made the com- he repents, and obtaining absolution. mandment of God of none effect by If the priest absolve the sinner from your traditions.”—Matt. xv. 6. these mortal sins, he never can be sent

On examination, it will be found to hell on account of them. But he that the drift and purpose of all the must be careful to confess them all; institutions, and even of the doctrines for, if he omit one of them, he will and practical operations of the Popish certainly be condemned to hell fire for association, is to exalt the members of ever for that one sin, whereby absolu. the priestly fraternity over the rest of tion from the other sins will be of no the community, and, in reality, to avail. On this pretext the whole bring the rest of the community under community, from infancy to old age, subjection to them. This might, per- are assured that, to secure their salya. haps, be thought tolerable by some tion, it is absolutely necessary to inpersons, if the means adopted were form the priest of all they think or do, not utterly flagitious. The fraternity lest they should omit the confession of pretend that their head or chief, the some mortal sin. After absolution Pope, is on earth the vicar or deputy from a mortal sin, although the man of God's eternal Son, by whom were cannot sent to hell on account of created all things, visible and invisible. it, he may, nevertheless, be put into That, in virtue of this delegation, the the purifying and sufficiently horrible association are, by inherent right, the fire of purgatory, or exposed to missuperiors, and independent of all kings, fortunes in this life. But from these and princes, and political human esta- consequences also, absolution may be blishments. Indeed, if it be admitted purchased with lands or money, or by that the Popish priesthood hold com- some good deed required by the holy munications from heaven of authority fraternity. equal to the written Christian scrip- The result of the whole is, that the tures, conferring infallibility on them priest is, upon earth, truly a god, or their chief the Pope, it is not easy seeing he holds the divine power of to limit their pretensions, because, in forgiving sins. The only practical the name and by the alleged authority inferiority of the priest to the Most of Almighty God, they can declare High God is, that the priest does not their own powers and prerogatives to know the actions of men till they are be whatever they think fit, just as Ma. told (confessed) to him. To secure homet could solve every difficulty by their future salvation, the children of bringing down the angel Gabriel with Papists are carefully trained to the a new chapter of the Koran.

practice of confession, and to pour The plans of the Popish association into the ear of the priest, both spon. are most artfully devised and actively taneously and in answer to his minute en forced.

interrogatories, a detail of all their 1. As they do not hesitate to claim acts and imaginings. intimate communication with the Confession to the priest is reproEternal God, so they do not scruple sented as a holy sacrament,

It must to make profit of the Day of Judgment. be made by the sinner (though a king Men, conscious of imperfection and or queen) kneeling before this ter's improper conduct, have a natural fear restrial god, who has full power over of standing in judgment before the the world to come. Thus the fraterterrible tribunal of omniscient justice nity of priests become the lords and and irresistible power. Availing rulers of the credulous nation or themselves of this fear, the fraternity people over whom they have acquired say, God has given us power to forgive an ascendency, or whom they have all sios; but to entitle us to do so, you persuaded to believe in the fabulous must confess to us your sins. These privileges which they assume. To they divide into two classes, venial procure safety from hell and posses. and mortal. Venial sins may be ex- sion of immortal felicity in heaven, piated by the fire of purgatory, or the becomes a matter of bargain with priest may pardon them on submitting the priest, who has the power of fixto penanco, or for a consideration, ing the price of the inestimable boon

which he is to bestow, and which is to jects of superstition, they adorn the soothe the mind and allay the horrors persons of the higher priests with of the dying sinner. By such bar- costly robes, they build magnificent gains, the Popish association of priests, temples, and support establishments of monks, and nuns, were at one time vocal and instrumental music. They proprietors of nearly half the land of fill their temples with paintings to Scotland, and of a tenth (teind) of the represent God the Father, and Jesus, annual produce of the remaining and his mother Mary, and especially lands of our country.

with innumerable statues of Mary, 2. The fraternity affirm that each and saints, and angels, before which the individual priest has the extraordinary people are admonished to offer up power of actually making or creating prayers for their intercession with God himself. On the repetition, by God and Christ. In every shape, the the priest, of certain Latin words (hoc fraternity labour to establish a religion est corpus meum), a morsel of bread that is to fill the imagination with ob(generally a wafer) is transformed into jects of superstition. They baptise the Eternal Second Person of the Holy bells to drive the devils from the airTrinity, both God and man in one they consecrate barrel-fulls of water person, The priest offers him up as a wherewith to sprinkle devotees-exsacrifice for the sins of any person hibit bones of saints as objects of who will pay for the operation. The veneration-encourage pilgrimages to table at which the operation is per their celebrated temples. Above all, formed, is called the altar.

After a

in utter despite of all the prohibitions wafer has thus been converted (with in the Bible, they fill their temples out any apparent change) into the with consecrated idols. Indeed, with Lord Jesus Christ, soul, body, and the exception of the sacrifice of ani. divinity, it is raised aloft, and all per- mals, there is scarcely a practice of sons are expected to kneel and wor- paganism which they do not adopt. ship it, as it is borne along the streets In a recent account of China,* the to the house of any sick person who superstitious practices of the priests of has sent for it and is to pay for it. Budho are mentioned. A recital of them

Necessarily, the priest who has the may supersede the necessity of a far power to create the Son of God, or to ther detail of the Romish superstitions. perform the Mass, must, in the esti.

“ We cannot conclude our account of mation of Papists, be of extreme im

the Buddhestic religion,” says the author, portance-sacred in his person and

“ without noticing the similarity of its awfully privileged.

ceremonies to those of the Church of To all practical purposes, Christ has Rome. The points of coincidence are only died for the profit of the priest, many and striking. The celibacy, tonsure, who may grant or refuse at his plea- professed poverty, secluded abodes, and sure all the benefits resulting from the peculiar dress of the priests—the use of sufferings and intercession of the Son

the rosary, candles, incense, holy water, of the Blessed.” God is converted bells, and relics, in their worship--their into a sort of slumbering or inactive belief in purgatory, with the possibility of divinity, who has intrusted all his praying souls out of its fires-the offering powers to his prime minister or vicar up of prayers in a strange language, with on earth, the Pope and his subordinates their incessant repetition, the pretension God and Christ are thus practically

to miracles-the similarity of their altar. dethroned, and so they are usually com

pieces, and the very titles of their interplimented merely with Latin prayers,

cessors, such as

• Goddess of mercy, while the real business of obtaining with the image of a virgin baving a child

Holy mother, • Queen of heaven, safety here and hereafter must be transacted with the ministry.

in her arms holding a cross-are all such

striking coincidences, that the Catholic 3. As the fraternity thrive by ex

missionaries were greatly stumbled at the citing towards themselves and their

resemblance between the Chinese worship operations the sentiments of fear,

a

6

a

manner of holy Mother Church, in order

ger was, that the people would employ to expose her ceremonies to shame."

teachers, whereby to enable themselves As the ambition of the ministers and their children to read the cheap of superstition is every where the books now produced.

The priests same, it has naturally happened that stood eagerly forward, and offered to systems of superstition have borrowed become teachers ; and then they so ceremonials from each other. Eu- managed matters as that nobody ropean monks have often reached should learn. They taught the chilChina ; and no doubt taught to their dren to venerate the priests ; to make fellow priests the emblems of Western endless repetitions of questions, creeds, superstition. The inference is, that and Latin prayers; and contrived so the Romish religion is truly a system to disgust them with literature, that of Pagan superstition, which has dis- they carried little or none of it from guised itselfunder Christian names. the school. Thus, there remained little

4. The Popish fraternity pretend that danger that they would read prohithe Eternal God has at all times inspi- bited heretical books. On this subred them, or their chief the Pope, with ject, I cannot do better than quote the a perfect knowledge of all religious able and valuable letters of Mr Coltruth. Not to believe what they an- quhoun of Killermont, M.P., to the nounce, is styled heresy. It is an act Rev. James Carlisle, Commissioner of rebellion against the association; of the Board of National Education, and, in proportion to their powers, is Dublin. In letter 8th, Mr Colquhoun without mercy to be hunted down by says: persecution, assassination, confiscation, tortures, and death. It is, when

“ On this point, as on many others, we persisted in, equivalent to a sin against mistake the policy of the Roman Catholic

Church. We think it shallow-in fact the Holy Ghost, speaking through his

it is profound; but our view of it is superHoliness the Pope and his fraternity.

ficial. Two very distinguished priests, It is therefore a sin, and the only sin Wiseman and Dean Macnamara, were for which the priest can grant no ab.

examined by the Committee (of the House solution. A man may buy absolution

of Commons) of 1835-6 on Education. for the crime of murdering his wife, or To those who have not watched the popoisoning his father, but not for re- licy of the prie ood, that evidence will fusing to believe what his priest re- appear embarrassing ; to those who are quires him to believe.

acquainted with it, consistent and clear. 5. The greatest danger the frater. Dr Wiseman informs the Committee that nity ever encountered, arose from the his Church pays the utmost attention to invention of the art of printing ; and popular education. He says, 'that in Italy they did at first receive from it a rude the education of the poor is specially atshock. A sagacious old priest said- tended to: that in every commune in the

If we do not destroy printing, print. Roman States there is a free school; in ing will destroy us. Printing did every quarter of Rome there is the same. not destroy them ; and it was in baf. It will delight you to learn, that in Rome Aling the efforts of this formidable ad

there is a board of national education. versary, that the system of Popery devote themselves to the instruction of the

hesides, religious orders, who has most eminently displayed its reAll was at stake. It was

poor; and there are colleges and seminaobvious, that if the Bible should be ries, generally gratuitous and largely en

dowed, for the instruction of the young, freely perused by multitudes in their own language, and intelligence acqui- vanced. For females there are schools of

from the earliest period to the most adred by the free perusal of books of all industry, and schools of general instrucsorts, the idolatry fostered by the

tion.' In fact, according to Dr Wiseman, priests—their infallibility-their wa

there never was a country so favoured as fer-god-their pretended miracles

the Papal States—so drilled through and their power over the world to come

through with popular education. Nor is -their vestments, processions, holy it confined to these States.- Popular water, holy bells, holy bones, and all education,' he tells us, equally prevails in their other mummery, would be swept Tuscany." He might have added it is to away. The arch enemy Printing, was be found in Naples, in Spain, and in encountered thus :

France. In France, the Freres Ignorantins The fraternity pretended to enter- devote themselves to the work of educatain a great favour for it. The dan- ting the people, and upwards of 50,000

а

There are,

sources.

A peo

children are gathered into their schools. from their minds, &c. The first object If, then, we are to believe this concurrent of the priests in every country in which testimony, our notion that the Roman they have power, is to establish schools Catholic priests are opposed to the educa. under their influence; and jhe reason tion of the people, is an error. One thing, why they establ sh schools at all, is a very to be sure, is staggering, that it appears

sound one.

If they left the children with. that these zealous exertions of the priests out some semblance of education, the are never blessed with success. In the prople would originate schools for them. countries which I have mentioned, the s-lves, and they might thus acquire instrucpeople are marked, not as you would sup- tion. By taking the schools into their pose, by knowledge, but by gross igno- own hands, the priesthood secure that no rance. In Italy, as every traveller knows, knowledge shall reach the people. Ac. the peasantry are extremely illiterate. In cordingly, in all Roman Catholic countries Rome, not one man in a hundred can ei. -in B lgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy - you ther read or write. In Naples, the case is find the country covered with schools, worse ; in Spain, worse still; and in and schools in the hands of the priests. France, till the present century, the pea- And, so long as th- state remains under the santry were barbarously ignorant. And influ-nce of the Roman Catholic Church how do we explain these facts—these ap- the schools are such as I have desciibed, parent contradictions ? Quite easily. - bigoted, foi mal, superstitious haunts ; When the priests say—when Dr Wiseman plac s in which the minds of the chiland Dean Macnamara say--that they are

dren are bammered as on a forge into zealous for popular education, let us ob

a hardened bigotry.” serve what they mean by education. They “ If driven to the necessity of teach. do not mean what we do --the develope

ing something in their schools, the ment of the faculties, the cultivation of the

priests make a show of giving educamind. They mean, gathering children

tion by teaching arithmetic, with as into rooms, which they facetiously call

little of reading as possible. schools, in which they are put under the

ple quick in calculation may remain charge of a priest or a monk; and the ob.

superstitious; but a people reading, ject of these saintly gentlemen is, to make

thinking, questioning, would throw them commit to memory catechisms and long prayers; to repeat the “Ilail Mary'

off the yoke of bigotry." Above all, and the doctrine ; to impress on them an

the free perusal of the sacred Scripabject fear of the Church, and a beavy awe

tures, in a correct translation, is careof the priest; and thus to develope in full

fully prevented, and even denounced force the passions of terror and supersti. as a grievous crime ; for this obvious tion, &c. The Lancasteriin mode of teach- reason, that the perusal of the New ing was resisted by the priests as tending

Testament would “lay the axe to the to excite a dangerous activity of intellect root of the tree,” by showing that the by mutual instruction."

pretext that the Popish association are Mr Colquhoun adds,

teachers of the religion of Jesus

Christ, is palpably uutrue; and that “ That you may perceive more clear- the idolatry which they sanction, is ly, and observe that they mean the same utterly offensive to the divinity they thing all the world over, I will mention to pretend to worship. you what was discovered at Manchester.

By the arts now described, the as. There is a large Roman Catholic school

sociated priesthood of Rome have been in Manchester, out of which hundreds of

able in a great degree, and in many child en are paraded every Easter, to countries, to resist the effect of the show how the Romish Church cares for

invention of the art of printing. The her children. It was discovered, how..

danger from that invention was great ever, by the chaplain in the jail, that these

and imminent; and it has cost them children, so educated, were scarce ever able to read, and were brutally ignorant,

much toil and vigilance to defeat the How did this happen ? From a very sim

effect of it. They have treated it as ple cause It turned out that the Popish

a most diabolical invention, and, in system of instruction in the heart of Man

their malignity, they have represented chester, was the same as in the heart of

John Faust, or Faustus, an early arRome. The children were drilled in ca

6