friend, with all his talent and his learning, is now working for his bread in an ironmonger's warehouse! But, so far as this world is concerned, he is better provided for than some that are engaged in preaching the Gospel.

Do you

Would you

Behold, my dear Friend, the sort of encouragements held out by the Protestant party to persons leaving the Church of Rome! think the prospect very inviting? incur the hatred of your father and mother, brothers and sisters, and neighbours; would you renounce all your friends, and relinquish all the delights of home; would you sacrifice your character, and suffer yourself, "by sudden wrench," to be torn away from all those hearts that once beat in unison with your own ;-would you do all this for such a reward? Away, then, with those malignant charges and base insinuations thrown out against the character of those who leave the Church of Rome! Their conduct evinces a self-immolation-a heroism, which all but the blinded bigot must admire.

As to myself, though exposed to the vulgar slander like others, I can truly say, that I never got any thing among Protestants which I did not earn honestly. With much trouble, a Reverend Friend obtained for me a poor situation, which I

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was compelled to relinquish by an anonymous notice which threatened my life if I did not; and this notice, I can assure you, came from a Churchman!

LETTER VIII.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

HAVING thus disposed of the charge of cupidity and hypocrisy usually brought against the converts from the Roman Catholic Church, I now return to my narrative. You will remember I stated in a former letter that I made a solemn vow that I would remain in the Church of Rome, in order to escape the disgrace and the persecution consequent on separation. But I soon repented of this vow as foolish, and, in fact, unlawful. It seemed mean and dastardly to go from Sunday to Sunday to chapel, hypocritically kneeling before an altar, which desecrated, instead of sanctifying, the gifts that were placed on it. Why not manfully avow my opinions? Was not my duty to God tantamount to every other consideration? These reflections had their weight. But then, how was I to begin to be openly a Protestant ?

There are two things which Roman Catholics, you are aware, regard as the most infamous and unexpiable of all crimes-eating meat on Friday and joining in Protestant worship. These constitute the Rubicon of Romanism: pass it,

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and you are a rebel, a wretch, a slave to your appetite, an execrable renegade. How I shuddered when I stood on its banks! I was at the house of a Protestant when I summoned up sufficient courage to say I would take meat on Friday. It was placed before me. I hesitated; my hand trembled: I laid down the knife and fork; I blushed, because the Roman Catholics present would misrepresent my motives; and then blushed again at my own weakness. At last the spell was broken, and I wondered how I could have been swayed by a prejudice so palpable and vulgar. No one but a Romish convert can truly estimate the force of early prepossession, confirmed by a long habit of ceremonial observance, which it is deemed impious to violate; and none but such a person can fully sympathize with Peter and the other Jewish converts, in the strong reluctance and painful struggles with which they departed from the customs of their fathers. I can assure you it requires a strong mind, well fortified by reason and Scripture, to make this visible and outward transition from one system to another, without a misgiving of conscience and a disagreeable sense of defilement. Thus you perceive that man, with all his boasted reason, is very much the creature of instinct.

I

In the Autumn of 18-, one Sunday morning, I met in the street of E- an intimate Roman Catholic friend. We had been companions long, had read the same books, and been engaged in the same occupation. Our conversation now turned on religious topics. I candidly avowed the new doctrines I had embraced. He warmly impugned them; and we had an animated discussion. At length, he gave me up as lostdeeply lamented my heresy-said I would certainly become a Protestant minister, and promised in that case to make an effort to hear me preach. Just at this moment a gentleman passed by whom I did not know. "That gentleman," said he, "would agree with your arguments: he is the Protestant Curate; he is going now to church."

I secretly resolved to go too, deeming it better to pass the ordeal at once; although I did so, not without sad and trembling emotion, knowing that the moment I crossed the threshold of the church-door I would become a marked man, for ever after isolated from all I held most dear; and that this very act would, like the shears of Atropos, cut in sunder at once all those tender ties of friendship that constituted the happiness of my life. My resolution, however, was taken. Haying bid farewell to my friend, I directed my