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sions have been made by roman-catholic missionaries in Madura, Cochin-china, Tonquin, the empire of China, the peninsula of Corea; among the Hurons, Miamis, Illinois, and other tribes of North America, among the savages of Paraguay, Uraguay and Panama; among the wild Moxos, Chiquits and Canizians. All these countries have been watered with the blood of roman-catholic missionaries; and, to use the well-known expression of Tertullian, "their "blood became the seed of the church."

Consider the spectacle recently exhibited in Ireland! There, the priests live among their poor and famished flocks, comforting and sharing their scanty pittance with them; zealously and laboriously instructing them in the saving truths of religion, administering to them its rites and comforts, and scarcely known to any but to them. On a sudden, some unwise Bible missionaries obtruded themselves on their flocks; strove to make them disobedient to their pastors, and to proselytize them to the state-religion. Thus assailed, these obscure, but worthy priests, started up, in all the panoply of religion, learning and eloquence. What historical fact, what argument, did the subject of discussion call for or admit, which they did not produce? What form of eloquence did they not display? It was a proud day for the catholics of Ireland. Can you any where find a set of clergymen, who, thus suddenly called upon, could have rendered such an account of their faith? Is it to be wondered, that such men announce the word of God with success?

IV. 2.

Unfounded Charge brought in this Chapter against the Anglo-Saxon Clergy.

TOWARDS the middle of this chapter*, you broadly describe the missionaries, as "politic in "contrivance; little scrupulous concerning the "measures which they employed, because they

were persuaded that any measures were justifiable, "if they conduced to bring about the good end "which was their aim."

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You must admit, that the principle which you impute in this place to the Anglo-Saxon missionaries is most nefarious, and fraught with the worst consequences. You must also admit, that a charge of this nature, when it is brought against an individual, can only be proved by producing either his own acknowledgment of it, or else such facts as establish it by just inference; and that, when it is brought against a body of men, it can only be proved by producing a multiplicity of such acknowledgments, or a multiplicity of such facts. But in the present case, where are these acknowledgments? Where are these facts?

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IV. 3.

Alleged purer Faith of the Welch.

"THE Saxons," you inform us, "received christianity with its latest ceremonials, additions, and

* Vol. 1, p. 55, 56.

"doctrinal corruptions. The Welch were possessed "of a purer faith.”

But, can the slightest evidence, of their purer faith, on even the slightest ground to presume it, be produced? Gildas, who was himself a Welchman, and a contemporary with St. Augustine, censures, in the strongest terms, the morals of the clergy of Wales, and their neglect of clerical duty. Is it then likely, that their faith should have been purer than that of St. Augustine? Add to this, that one of St. Augustine's demands of the Welch was, that they should join him, and his companions, in preaching the word of God to the pagans*: Would he have made this demand if there had not been the strictest unity of faith between himself and the clergy of Wales? His only other demands were, that they should adopt the Roman ritual in the administration of baptism; observe the computation of Easter, used in every other part of Christendom; and submit to the metropolitan jurisdiction over them, which the pope had conferred upon him. All the demands of St. Augustine were refused: you infer from this, that their religious creed differed from that of the Roman see, and give to their's a decided preference. I beg leave to observe, that the difference between the baptismal rite observed by the Welch, and the rite which St. Augustine required them to observe, was a mere difference in form, not a difference in any thing, which the roman-catholic church considers to be of substance; that the dif

• Doctor Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church,

p. 2.

ference between them in the computation of Easter, respected an observance in which no point of faith was implicated; and that their refusal to acknowledge St. Augustine for their archbishop and metropolitan, was no greater assertion of the independence of their church, on an intermediate prelate, than in every æra of christianity, and in every part of the christian world, roman-catholic prelates of the fairest fame, recognized by the see of Rome to be in communion with her, and unequivocally acknowledging her supremacy, have strenuously asserted against her in points of local discipline. It should be added, that the Welch, notwithstanding these differences, were always in communion with the see of Rome; and, at no very distant period, conformed, in all the points which have been mentioned to the general discipline of the romancatholic church.

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LETTER V.

RELIGION OF THE DANES-THEIR CONVERSION.

SIR,

IN this chapter you give an account of the mythology of the Scandinavian nations. It gives me pleasure to mention it with unqualified praise; and to add, that having many years ago paid particular attention to this subject, and presented the result to the public*, I now find, with pleasure, that it coincides altogether with that which the public actually receive from your much-abler pen.

In this chapter, the piracy of the Danes is properly noticed. Mr. Sharon Turner's account of the sea-kings, and of Vitingr of the North, in his History of the Anglo-Saxonst, is singularly interesting.

I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of transcribing the account which, in the chapter now before me, you give of the blessings diffused over all Scandinavia, by the propagation of christianity in those extensive regions. "By the policy, the

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steady system of the popes, the admirable zeal "of the Benedictines, and by the blessing of God, "which crowned all, the whole of the Scandina"vian nations were converted, about the time of the Norman Conquest; and thus an end was

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put to those religions which made war their prin* Horæ Biblicæ, part 2. The Edda.

+ Page 68.

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