mercy; and a venerable relic it must have been, seven hundred years after, in the days of Hezekiah. But now the children of Israel, with that tendency to corrupt and poison everything which pertains to human nature, had begun to make an idol of this ancient gift of God. They burnt incense to it, as men now-a-days burn incense to a piece of bread or to a piece of wafer. Hence Hezekiah "brake it in pieces," telling the people that it was nothing but "a piece of brass;" as he, if he lived in our days, would as plainly declare, “That which you burn incense to, is nothing but a piece of wafer." And the Scripture takes care to add, " And the Lord was with him, and he prospered whithersoever he went," (2 Kings xviii. 7.)

It was in Hezekiah's days, when the children of Israel and the children of Judah had corrupted themselves, so that "the land was full of idols," that Isaiah wrote his fearful twenty-fourth chapter; in which he prophesies that "the land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled." And wherefore? "Because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant," (ver. 5.)

66

And that is the sin of Rome at this day. Never was an "ordinance of God" more entirely "changed" than the Lord's Supper has been by the Romish Church. And it is this which stamps Apostasy" on her forehead, and makes the decree certain ;—"In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction," (ver. 12.) All men who are not already enthralled with her enchantments, are looking towards Rome, just now, with a certainty of the speedy fulfilment of these predictions.

66

"THE

ON EDUCATION BY NUNS.

HE Peterborough Examiner gives a report of a lecture on Education by Nuns, and the guilt and folly of those Protestants who hand over their children to such an influence. What did Protestants suppose was the object of Rome in multiplying those conventual establishments for the education of their daughters? Was it its anxiety for the spread of education? Let the whole history of Rome-let the condition of such a country as Spain, thoroughly Romish, answer the question. Rome is wise. Rome acts through the most wonderful organisation the world has ever witnessed. Political as well as religious-in fact, more political than religious-her first object is power, dominancy. She has found, from bitter experience, that, in fair and open discussion, she meets with crushing defeat. Luther, Knox, Calvin, Cranmer, have taught a lesson that she is wise enough to profit by. She has changed her tactics. She attempts to do, by serpentlike craft and stealth, what she could not do in these days by fair discussion or cruel persecution; and of all the weapons she uses most sedulously and with most success, upon none does she place more value than upon that which enables her to throw around the daughters of Protestants an influence as deadly as it is fascinating. When a Protestant father or mother, with culpable simplicity, places his daughter in the hands of these ladies, and expresses his hope that no attempts will be made to influence her in religious matters, he meets with fascinating smiles and earnest protestations. Poor silly Protestants, how often are you the subject of Popish merriment! Do you know that Rome holds that you have no religion? Their theologians have styled your religion simply a negative, or nothing;

and how can the polite priest or smiling nun interfere with nothing? Alas, Protestants, you are doing your best to build up that system that your forefathers spent blood and treasure to assail and pull down! Do you think that a female who continually kneels at the feet of an unmarried man, pouring out her thoughts, her desires, the whole of her conscious being, can be as pure as one who kneels only at the feet of Jesus? Do you suppose that women doomed to perpetual celibacy, cut off by a dreadful vow from all participation in the ordinary duties of wife and mother, are best fitted to teach and influence your daughter, whom you hope to take her part in life's battle? Deluded and faithless Protestant fathers and mothers! How many have had to curse the day that witnessed their credulity and their sin! Your daughters are surrounded by those whose ceaseless object and highest ambition is to undermine and to destroy your daughters' faith, and to bring them within the embrace of Rome. When will Protestants awake to a sense of their folly? Rome is active at the polls, in the parliaments, and in the councils of the nation. She ever presents an unbroken front, whilst you Protestants play into her hands and pander to her power."-The Ballyshannon Herald, March 14, 1868.

TO A CROSS EMBOSSED ON A PROTESTANT'S LETTER.

"The cross is one of the great bloody idols of the Church of Rome."-M'GAVIN.*
WHEN, sable Cross, mine eye on thee did light,
I mused what bishop, Romish or Assyrian,
Could correspond with humble Presbyterian,
Or would he prove a new-fledged Puseyite?
I oped; but scarcely credited my sight,

That read the name of a protesting brother!
Regard could ill mine indignation smother
At growing signs of Rome's encroaching might.
The brazen serpent, as a type employ'd,

And viewed by faith, the wounded rebels heal'd;
But when with incense men before it kneel'd,

It was denounced Nehushtan,† and destroyed.
So thee, meet type of the Redeemer's dying,

I must renounce, when thus false hope supplying.+

ABERDEEN.

THE

A GLIMPSE AS TO IRISH ELECTIONS.

L.

HE following will show how Rome respects the Sabbath in Ireland, and the efforts which will likely be made over the whole country in regard to the coming elections:

"Mr Staniforth, with his solicitor, attended mass in the cathedral of Athlone on Sunday. In the afternoon there was a meeting of the priests and the bishop, to discuss the choice of a candidate, but the result of their deliberations did not transpire."-Dublin Correspondent of Standard, 8th July 1868.

* "The sign of the cross, that Rome now worships, was made use of in the Babylonish mysteries."-The Two Babylons.

+ 2 Kings xviii. 4. Nehushtan, i.e., a piece of brass.

•

"The adoration paid to the form of the cross. has been exactly parallel to the worship of the brazen serpent."-Scott's Comment.

PRO

ROMISH ARROGANCE.*

ROBABLY nothing indicates more clearly the unaltered spirit of Rome, and her confidence in the profound ignorance and apathy of the mass of the English people, than some of the recent publications of Dr Manning. In them we have truly "a mouth speaking great things." To take the most recent instance, we have before us a volume of essays written by several Popish authors, and endorsed by a preface, or introductory essay, by Dr Manning himself. This preface, as well as the whole volume, ought to be read by all who wish to understand the true spirit and aims of Popery at present, and what a thorough delusion it is to imagine that she will be satisfied of anything short of entire supremacy, as of old, in this country and throughout the world. The following passage is from the preface by Dr Manning, and is bold enough:

"The providence of God has poured shame and confusion on the Tudor statutes. The royal supremacy has perished by the law of mortality, which consumes all earthly things. And at this period of our history the supremacy of the Vicar of Jesus Christ re-enters as full of life as when Henry VIII. resisted Clement VII., and Elizabeth withstood S. Pius V. The undying authority of the Holy See is once more an active power in England; the shadow of Peter has fallen again upon it.”— Pp. 19, 20.

All the essays are worth reading, but probably the most remarkable is that by a Mr Purcell, on the "Union of Church and State," in which he boldly maintains the most extreme views of the middle ages. The following are extracts from this remarkable and instructive production :

:

"The Church, on the other hand, in virtue of the power which she has received from God, has the right to require from the civil governor, as from the individual Christian, that he should receive from her hands the divine law, and act in obedience to her interpretation of its precepts. In this obedience lies the basis of the relation between the Church and the civil power."-Pp. 396, 397.

"Human nature is so constituted that, to attain its proper end, it stands in need of external assistance; and since the end of this life is happiness in the hereafter world, so, as St Thomas teaches, it is the business of the civil power so to order society as to be best adapted to the attainment of that end. But in this ordering of society, it stands to reason that the civil power, since the end to be worked for is beyond its jurisdiction, must labour in subordination to the Church. Just in this respect the civil power is the servant of God; following the directions of the Church, 'it helps,' as St Gregory says, those who are inclined to good, it makes broader the narrow way, and thus the earthly serves the heavenly kingdom.' Hence it follows, that not only since the foundation of the Church, but from the very commencement of social life, two powers were appointed to govern the world—the spiritual and the temporal, both of God, but different in the character of their institution. The civil power, though in itself instituted immediately by God, was not especially communicated to an individual in this or that kingdom; this is the primary difference between the two powers, for the Church was not only constituted directly by Christ, but the supreme authority was conferred directly upon Peter as His representative on earth. The whole constitution likewise of the Church is divine; therefore the prince, like the individual Christian, falls under the universal obligation of submission to its authority. But, says Lactantius, 'in these two, the royal priesthood and secular royalty, inseparably united, the duty of man, as well as all truth, is contained.'” Pp. 398, 399.

"Occasions were not wanting for the employment of the civil sword in defence of the Church. 'Defend,' says Leo the Great, in a letter to the Emperor Theodosius II., 'defend against the heretics the unshaken position of the Church, so that by the rights of Christ your kingdom also be protected.' Thus the spiritual and the civil powers were so united as to make it impossible that rebels against the one should find refuge with the other. Hence, argues Professor Philipps, this principle flows,

Essays on Religion and Literature. By various Writers. Edited by Archbishop Manning. Second series. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1867.

that neither the Church nor the State, wheresoever they are united on the true basis of divine right, have any cognisance of tolerance. 'Not the Church,' he says, ' because neither true peace nor true charity recognises tolerance. Not the State, because in accordance with its own principle it must not tolerate anything which does not agree with divine justice. Christ himself condemns tolerance when He says, 'Who is not with me is against me.'"-Pp. 402, 403.

"The most complete independence of all State control in ecclesiastical matters is an essential characteristic of the Church. It must, moreover, be remembered that inasmuch as all these relations are based on the divine law, and the interpretation of the divine law rests with the Church alone, it follows that to her belongs the right of adjudicating on all these relations, and on the Christian State lies the obligation of implicit obedience."-P. 408.

"In modern times it is too much the custom to limit or explain away rights which were undoubtedly exercised by the Popes in former days, in order to bring the Papal authority into harmony with political ideas, which have too often nothing in common with Christian principles. The only satisfactory explanation, it seems to me, of the history of the Popes in the middle ages, is the simple statement that the Popes were responsible to God for the well-being of Christendom, and, acting on such responsibility, they deposed, by a right inherent in the Papacy, kings who had forfeited their right to reign over a Christian people. If this right be denied to them, the greatest and holiest of the Popes will be justly exposed to the reproach of having put forward false claims, and of having usurped an authority to which they had no title."-Pp. 414, 415.

"Hence it follows if the prince rebelled in such temporal matters as were subject to the authority of the Church, how much more so if he fell into heresy! He was not only excommunicated, but forfeited also his civil rights. It was simply impossible for a king, put outside the Church, to rule over a Christian community; it would be an act in direct antagonism to the first principles of law and order. It was an axiom in such a condition of society, that kings, to have the right to govern their people, had to be Christian. Unless, therefore, the right of excommunication were denied to the Popes, the right of deposition had to be allowed. Moreover, the right of deposing kings is inherent in the supreme sovereignty which the Popes, as the vicegerents of Christ, exercise over all Christian nations. By the very fact of being Christian, nations have accepted the divine law, and are bound by its remotest consequences, and the Church is responsible to God for the observance of the divine law by kings and peoples alike, but every responsibility involves a corresponding authority. Therefore this supreme sovereignty is vested in the Church. One of the attributes of sovereignty, however, is to execute judgment, and the last punishment of kings is deposition. But the Church is also responsible for the highest welfare of the people, for whose good, in the name of God, kings reign. When kings renounce the name of God, and lead their people to destruction, the Vicar of Christ, by virtue of his supreme responsibility and consequent sovereignty, deposes the godless king and absolves the people from their oath of allegiance."--Pp. 416, 417.

"A question distinct from this, however, is the exercise of a right undoubtingly possessed. A man, for instance, may possess a right, and yet be unable to exercise it, or consider it inexpedient even to assert it; yet this restraint under which he labours does not destroy his right. In a like manner, the vicars of Christ possess the right to excommunicate kings by name, or to depose them, or to lay kingdoms under an interdict; and yet, owing to the altered state of Christendom, and because it would not now conduce to the public good, the sovereign pontiffs refrain from inflicting these terrible penalties on sacrilegious princes or on rebellious people; but it does not follow from this wise expediency that the Popes of the present age are dispossessed of this supreme attribute of their sovereign power over the nations. Under circumstances, the non-exercise of a right is no conclusive argument as to its non-existence. Writers have argued, and nations have declared, that Popes have no power; but no Pope, that I am aware of, has accepted such arguments or endorsed such declarations, and therefore I will follow what the Popes have said and done, rather than the opinions of Gallican legists, or the declarations of heretical parliaments.

"In the earlier centuries indeed of the middle ages, the Christian state was so constituted as to be able to carry out almost in perfection the divine laws as to the public government of society. Instead of the antagonism which, to a greater or less degree, has ever since existed between the spiritual and temporal powers, there was, on tho whole, harmony and effective co-operation. Owing to this cooperation, the conscience of Christendom in all public matters was instinct with

the spirit of Christianity; and kings who fell under the ban of the Church were rejected and condemned at once by the public voice of Europe. The divine law was, in a word, the law of nations, and the Pope was the supreme law-giver on earth.” -Pp. 418, 419.

WE

HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION.*

E are glad that Dr Rule has brought his great talents and experience to the task of writing a history of the Inquisition. Nothing more emphatically proves that the Popish religion is Satanic in its nature and origin than the establishment and prolonged maintenance of such an institution. This is a conclusive proof that it is the true offspring of him who was a murderer from the beginning. If one desired to find a perfect contrast to the proceedings of Him who "went about continually doing good," it would be found in the proceedings of the inquisitors of Rome.

No doubt much has been written already upon this painfully interesting subject, and all students of history know less or more about it. But even those who are well-informed will find that Dr Rule has gathered together and condensed the whole literature of the question, and written in regard to it with singular freshness and vigour. If one could only make sure that such a book was generally read and studied, it would do very much to unmask the dangerous and unintelligent sentimentalism of the present day. We are not sure that the amiable author does not take too sanguine a view when he says, that whilst Popish "dungeons are all burst open, the generations that would suffer a repetition of such atrocities are all gone." It may be so. We wish we could be sure of it. But it is quite certain that Rome is as intolerant and cruel as ever, and that if she does not reconstruct the Inquisition, it will not be because men have changed, but because God, in His great mercy, does not permit. One's blood runs cold when reading the harrowing details of the present volume. But the human heart is still "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," and Popery, and even the multitude, may persecute again. The people of England may well dread a restoration of the system which kindled the fires of Smithfield, and we trust that the present powerful volume may be largely instrumental in re-awakening the old Reformation spirit.

WICKLIFFE, TYNDALE, AND ANN ASKEW.+

In two pamphlets, Mr Noel gives us three good summaries in verse of the doings and sufferings of the three Reformers named above. Wickliffe's early light shining in a dark place, opposed and trampled on, but never put out, is seen burning clearly till other lands catch the brightness, and at length the full light of the Reformation bursts upon Europe. Tyndale's work in translating the Bible, and his sufferings and death, are recorded. The heroic endurance, also, and joyful death of Ann Askew are touchingly told. Each story is literally true, and being vigorously and graphically written, they are all pleasant to read, and easy to remember. Much valuable information is supplied in prose notes, and we wish the author much success, and his interesting poems a wide circulation. Added to John Wickliffe's life are short and slightly different lives of Tyndale and Ann Askew. Such poetry as this might be taught to children instead of foolish songs and ballads.

*In every Country where its Tribunals have been established. By W. H. Rule, D.D. London: Wesleyan Conference Office.

+ By Horace Noel, M. A. London: W. Macintosh.