sion, points which would provoke the sharpest contest; and as a compromise, all finally agreed to leave the authority of the papal see, subject to the limitations set to it in former councils; and to provide against the spread of heresy, by requiring from ecclesiastics a solemn profession of faith, which they were to confirm by an oath. The pope profited by the decree, to the extent not only of exacting a profession of faith, but of devising the precise form in which it was to be made. The profession thus framed, is the well-known creed of Pius IV. The adoption of it was the predicted departure from the faith." This is a remarkable testimony, the assembly to which Romanism looks up with especial deference and submission, proclaiming the fidelity with which the Church of Rome had, through all past ages, kept the faith, and proclaiming this while making preparation for that departure from the faith, by which the same church was soon to be sinfully distinguished; assigning it as the distinction of the ancient Church of Rome, that it kept the faith, and assigning the fabrication of a faith, as its sinful task, to modern Romanism. While Mr. Newman makes light of this daring impiety, by professing to regard it only as a development," he claims for the Church of Rome the honour and authority she arrogates to herself, because she has, with a pertinacity unknown to other communions, insisted on the exclusive assumption of the term Catholic. This name, Mr. Newman, as well as the ordinary race of controversialists, brandishes, with apparent zest, against the appellation Protestant." Protestantism,"* he insists, "is not the Christianity of history." Protestants can as little bear its ante-Nicene as its post-Tridentine period." Mr. Newman has apologised for "his tone,"‡ if it appear "positive and peremptory," on the ground that "the scientific character of his work requires a distinct statement of principles," and he condemns the use of words without meaning,"§ as "the fault we find with youths under education;" yet notwithstanding his apology and his censure, he uses the two words which seem to perform the most prominent parts in his work, like one who never paused to reflect what it was he meant when he employed them. Catholic-Protestantwhat do they mean-how is their meaning ascertained-how are they related to each other? No writer, however idle and uninformed, can show less respect for such questions as these, than our "peremptory" author. We may confidently affirm, and are reminded by Mr. Newman's extreme vagueness, that it may not be superfluous to affirm, of these words, Catholic and Protestant, that there is no opposition whatever between themthat the one is a person who protests against alien usurpation over the rights of his church and state-and the other is a name assigned, by early usage and by an Eastern emperor, to one who holds the great doctrine of the Athanasian Creed. It is a curious faet that both terms conduct the mind to a political recognition of their meaning— the one to a decree of Theodosiusthe other to a protest against the jurisdiction of Ferdinand. In the Church of England both titles meet and recommend each other. She is Catholic in that she retains the Catholic doctrine of the Creed. She is Protestant in protecting this Catholic truth against papal adulteration. The reader of Mr. Newman's book will seek in vain for the arguments by which the author was led away from the faith. It seems sufficiently manifest that he first chose his new part, and then cast about for reasons to keep him in countenance. He first decided that Romanism was true, and then looked out for evidences that it was plausible. If the theory of development be sound, and a developing authority necessary-that authority will, or may be, found in the Papacy, and it may imply infallibility, or, at least, the duty of implicit obedience. His case being reasoned out in arguments of this kind, the plausibilities are elaborately brought forward in corroboration. We shall conclude with a single specimen of this artifice, with which we are willing to believe the reader will be abundantly contented: "The prima facie view of early Christianity, in the eye of witnesses external * Page 7. † P. 7. + P. 4. § P. 7. to it, is presented to us in the brief but vivid descriptions given by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the only heathen writers who distinctly mention it for the first hundred and fifty years. "Tacitus is led to speak of the religion, on account of the conflagration of Rome, which was properly imputed to Nero. To put an end to the report,' he says, he laid the guilt on others, and visited them with the most exquisite punishment, viz., those who, held in abhorence for their crimes, (per flagitios invisos,) were popularly called Christians. The author of that profession (nominis) was Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was capitally punished by the Procurator, Pontius Pilate. The deadly superstition (ex. itiabilis superstio), though checked for a while, broke out afresh; and that, not only throughout Judæa, the original seat of the evil, but through the city also, whither all things atrocious or shocking (atrocia aut pudenda) flow together from every quarter and thrive. At first, certain were seized who avowed it; then, on their report, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much of firing the city, as of hatred of mankind (odio humani generis).' After describing their tortures, he continues: 'In consequence, though they were guilty, and deserved most signal punishment, they began to be pitied, as if destroyed not for any public object, but from the barbarity of one man.' "Suetonius relates the same transactions thus :-' -Capital punishments were inflicted on the Christians, a class of men of a new and magical superstition (superstitionis nove et malefica).' What gives additional character to this statement is its context; for it occurs as one out of various police, or sumptuary, or domestic regulations, which Nero made; such as controlling private expenses, forbidding taverns to serve meat, repressing the contests of theatrical parties, and securing the integrity of wills.' "When Pliny was governor of Pontus, he wrote his celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, to ask advice how he was to deal with the Christians, whom he found there in great numbers. One of his points of hesitation was, whether the very profession of Christianity was not by itself sufficient to justify punishment; 'whether the name itself should be visited, though clear of flagitious acts, (flagitia,) or only when connected with them.' He says, he had ordered for execution such as persevered in their profession, after repeated warnings, as not doubting, whatever it was they professed, at any rate contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished.' He required them to invoke the gods, to sacrifice wine and frankincense to the images of the emperor, and to blaspheme Christ: 'to which,' he adds, it is said no real Christian can be compelled.' Renegades informed him that the sum total of their offence or fault was meeting before light on an appointed day, and saying with one another a form of words (carmen) to Christ, as if to a God, and binding themselves by oath, not to the commission of any wickedness, but against the commission of theft, robbery, adultery, breach of trust, denial of deposits; that, after this, they were accustomed to separate, and then to meet again for a meal, but eaten all together and harmless; however, that they had even left this off after his edicts enforcing the imperial prohibition of Hetaria or Associations.' He proceeded to put two women to the torture, but discovered nothing beyond a bad and excessive superstition, (superstitionem pravam et immodicam,) the contagion of which,' he continues, had spread through villages and country, till the temples were emptied of worshippers.' "In these testimonies, which will form a natural and convenient text for what is to follow, we have various characteristics brought before us of the religion to which they relate. It was a superstition, as all three writers agree; a bad and excessive superstition, according to Pliny; a magical superstition, according to Suetonius; a deadly superstition, according to Tacitus. Next, it was embodied in a society, and moreover, a secret and unlawful society or hetaria; and it was a proselytising society; and its very name was connected with flagitious,' 'atro. cious,' and 'shocking acts.' * * * "On the whole, I conclude as follows if there is a form of Christianity now in the world, which is accused of gross superstition, of borrowing its rites and customs from the Heathen, and of ascribing to forms and ceremonies an occult virtue; a religion which is considered to burden and enslave the mind by its requisitions, to address itself to the weak-minded and ignorant, to be supported by sophistry and imposture, and to contradict reason, and exalt mere irrational faith; a religion which impresses on the serious mind, very distressing views of the guilt and consequences of sin, sets upon the minute acts of the day, one by one, their definite value for praise or blame, and thus casts a grave shadow over the future; a religion which holds up to admiration the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it if they would; a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, are to the generality of men unknown; which is considered to bear on its very surface, signs of folly and falsehood so distinct, that a glance suffices to judge of it, and careful examination is preposterous; which is felt to be so simply bad, that it may be calumniated at hazard and at pleasure, it being nothing but absurdity to stand upon the accurate distribution of its guilt among its particular acts, or painfully to determine how far this or that story is literally true, what must be allowed to candour, or what is improbable, or what cuts two ways, or what is not proved, or what may be plausibly defended; a religion such, that men look at a convert to it with a feeling which no other sect raises except Judaism, Socialism, or Mormonism, with curiosity, suspicion, fear, disgust, as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if he had had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion with dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, reduced him to a mere organ or instrument of a whole; a religion which men hate as proselytising, antisocial, revolutionary, as dividing fami lies, separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of government, making a mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of human nature, and a spirator against its rights and privileges;' a religion which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness, and a pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven; a religion which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes wrong, and to which they impute whatever is unaccountable; a religion, the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad epithet, and which, from the impulse of self-preservation, they would persecute if they could ;-if there be such a religion now in the 'con world, it is not unlike Christianity, as that same world viewed it when first it came forth from its Divine Author." That is to say, if a "form of Chris tianity" exist, such as to provoke from Christians at this day, a judgment such as heathens pronounced on the church of the Apostles, the modern communion resembles the apostolic. The ancient religion is, by hypothesis, condemned by those who blasphemed its author-the modern "form," by those who adore Him, and therefore, therefore, the two resemble each other! Can infatuation dare more blindly than when it rushes upon such a conclusion? But we have not space to spare for all the elaborate follies of this strange argument. We conclude with a single application of it. Mr. Newman fancies that in the form of Christianity which he supposes scowled upon and scorned, Romanism is represented; the Church of England taking to itself the agency of defamation, which belonged, of old, to the heathen. We might affirm, that in presenting such a picture, the images were reversed by his unsettling fancy. We might allege that Romanism calumniates like the heathen-that the Protestant is moderate, as becomes a Christian. But contending affirmations seldom settle disputes. We can end this contention. It is common, perhaps, to many contending parties to give ill names to their adversaries. The heathen put Christian converts to death. Has Mr. Newman fears or apprehensions for his life? Need he have them? What communion, then, resembles the heathen? Read for the laws of Romanism, the class-books of Maynooth; and for her practices, look to the Protestant converts at Dingle. Would Mr. Newman or his followers try his test by such an application of it? THE STONE OF WITNESS. BY A DREAMER. [The ancient usage which is here glanced at, consisted in parting friends erecting a cairn or stone-beacon, at which they feasted for the last time, and thence separated on their respective routes. This memorial-heap then became an enduring witness of their plighted amity. We have a beautiful illustration of the custom in the history of Jacob and Laban.—Genesis xxxi. 44–49.] "Roll up the firm eternal rocks, and raise a cairn on high On this wild mountain-range, whose peaks swell proudly to the sky; "As all unmoved through rain and snows this beacon will abide; "So lasting may our loves remain through many a growing year; So fondly spake the Friends of Old in their low parting hour, The mountain-heap unmoved would stand, despite the tempest's rage, And we have we no Token-stone, to mark our faithful trust The hearth-stone of our early homes is our Memorial true- The glad partaker of our joys, when warm the ruddy blaze The lone spectator of our griefs when Desolation comes, And we cast around, in speechless grief, our eager questioning eyes Oh, ye whose home is yet untouched by Death's dividing hand, November, 1845. THE WANDERER'S RETURN. BY J. FULLARTON From distant climes young Roland of the vale To meet the sun-scorched wanderer's coming tread: Whereon he sighs to lean his aching head— One fond, maternal heart, that deems him with the dead. Ah, who can tell what deep emotions start Back to her arms-her all on earth that's dear! "Ah, whither hast thou roamed, my lonely son? Long years have fled since last I looked on thee: Alas! how pale thy cheek, and wo-begone How changed-how sad thou comest again to me! Thy brow, in youth from sorrow ever free, Is darkly shadowed with the clouds of care, And bent in gloom, while-oh, I weep to see Thy scorched and wasted form, and blanching hair, As if the hand of time had touched those ringlets fair. "Dost thou remember when thou lovedst to climb "Oh, canst thou ask, fond parent, why the blood One burning passion poured its fiery flood Nought of that passion's wreck my lips would speak- Food for the feverish dreamings of the mind, |