ber of the Papal communion. This is the favorite argument to make the Irish people contented with the misery they suffer by the priestridden degradation in their native land. Another class of the defenders of the Papacy admit the commercial and social degradation of Papal nations, but assert that their decline in temporal prosperity is due to the change of the great routes of navigation. It is true that America and England obtained access to the East Indies around the Cape of Good Hope, but this route is, and was, open to Spain, Portugal, and all Romanist countries. No recent discoveries have altered the route to South America; nearly the whole of that trade was hers, for her colonies, eleven times the area of the mother country, were equal to India in fertility; rivers were more numerous and mineral productions far superior. England, and in fact the whole of Europe, could never reach the South American Continent as quickly as Spain, for the northeast trade-winds were in her favor, and those nations would always be compelled to take a southern course to reach the Gulf of Mexico. Portugal and Spain obtained a vast continent, besides possessions in the West Indies and North America. No change in navigation could possibly affect the development of these immense acquisitions; but, as we have seen, ill government and superstition have left them a wilderness, and the very name of Spain an execration. But granting, for the sake of argument, that the carrying trade has been transferred, surely the loss of commerce cannot have plunged Spain, Portugal, and Italy into such moral debasement and political annihilation as they are now suffering. The asserters of so monstrous a proposition would make us believe that no country can prosper without commerce, which is palpably ridiculous. But if their argument be correct, why should Protestant Holland differ so materially from the above-mentioned countries? She has lost the greater part of her commerce and colonies, yet we see no such moral debasement, no such reducing of man to the level of the brute as we find with them. Protestantism found the world in medieval barbarism; feudalism and tyranny triumphant; mankind in slavery and ignorance. She has disenthralled the people, blessed them with literature and science, raised them to the virtue and dignity of MEN. Under her benign auspices they have learned the blessings of liberty, the charms of intellect, the triumphs of free government. She has given them a world, and taught them how, from a primeval forest, to carve out the glories of a rising empire, the terror of despotism, the star of hope to all nations. She has burst the barriers of three thousand years, and opened China to commerce and the West. She has forced Japan to obey her behests, and carried her faith into the polar zone. She has invented railroads, telegraphs, steam-engines, and countless appliances to benefit humanity. Her myriad presses carry heaven-born thought into far-off climes; she commands the ocean, and commerce is obedient to her. Man, disenchained man, stands forth as sovereign of the universe, a being after the image of God. THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. "The small voice within Heard through gain's silence, and o'er glory's din: Man's conscience is the oracle of God." BYRON. THE American mind declares itself in favor of the right of every man to worship God after the dictates of his own conscience. It acts upon the constitutional dictation, that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." That in the first article of the Amendments of the Constitution it is declared, "that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Leaving every individual free to establish his own standard of qualification, and to vote for or against those who hold certain religious principles, or political views, as each one may see right in his own eyes. (The war the American mind wages is for the freedom of religious opinion; it only opposes the tyranny of priestcraft-a tyranny which educates its slaves that the Church is infallible, superior in authority to the civil power, and that unquestioned obedience is the highest duty of the layman. The American mind demands that the people of this country, whether native or alien, be brought to consider principalities and powers as entitled to consideration, only as they are creations of the Constitution and the laws. That they be imbued with the spirit of independence, and regard the principle of equality as an article of living political faith; that they obey no authority, recognize no titles, save those which emanate from the civil power; that they admit no right to command on the part of any Church, and no duty of obedience on the part of the laity; that they see no peculiar sanctity in priestly robes, unless accompanied by the superior sanctity of those who wear them; that all deference to Church dignitaries is but the voluntary homage of the heart to exalted virtue; that there is no divinity hedging in a king, and a mitred bishop, even of the See of Rome, is but a man, entitled to respect only as a man, and to extraordinary consideration, only as his Christian graces shine with a lustre superior to those of common men. The Pope of Rome claims to be the vicegerent of God, and infallible; that all power on earth, spiritual and temporal, is given him by Divine appointment; that all countries and governments belong to him, and are either subject to his will and command, or in a state of criminal rebellion; that all authority in Church and State which does not profess to be under him, and act in strict conformity to his commands, is unlawful and wicked; that all religious opinions different from the dogmas of the Romish Church are heretical, and that those who profess them are heretics with whom no faith should be kept, whether plighted by contract or by oath; that it is the highest duty of all Romanists to extirpate this heresy and these heretics by sword, fire, and fagot; and by the same means to bring the political authorities to submit to the Pope in all things, and every human being to profess, and conform to the Romish faith; and to these ends they intend to devote their time, their labor, their energies and powers, and even expend their lives, which would be glorious martyrdom. It is because of the entertainment of such a belief that Romanism is opposed, and the influence of foreigners, who blindly and passively consent to such doctrines, dreaded; for all modern history teaches us, that the fairest portions of the earth have been ravaged with fire and sword to sustain these monstrous doctrines of a religiopolitical institution. ! It is true, that Romanism has not attempted for many years, save in its recent manifestoes against Sardinia, to assert its political and temporal power outside of the Papal dominions; but still, in its con stitution and principles, it adheres to these and all its other assumed powers. It has renounced none, nor will it do so. None of her exemplary children repudiate any of them, and if they did, they would be brought to recant by priestly visitation, or else have the spiritual thunder of excommunication denounced against them. For no higher offence than simply refusing to violate the most sacred enactments regarding church property existing in the State of New York, the trustees of the church of St. Louis, Buffalo, and its entire congregation, were placed under ban. The Bishop of the diocese published the pains of excommunication against them, and held their names up to infamy and reproach. The marriage sacrainent was refused, and the priest forbidden to minister at the altars. The assertion of the full extent of the assumed power by the Papal Church only slumbers, because the condition of human affairs-the light, liberty, and moral power of the world, will not suffer it to be put into execution. It is not the advance and elevation of principle, of morals, and Christian charity in that Church, and among its priesthood, which has purified it for the time being of these enormities. Let the state of the world favor it, and other Gregorys and Innocents would arise to enforce the powers of the Papacy in their utmost amplitude, and their most inexorable spirit. She believes that she is to be coeval with man, and ultimately to have his whole and perfect obedience. She has seen the great flux and reflux of her authority through many centuries, and she is looking forward patiently through other centuries in confidence, when her strength in full tide is to come to her again. Ever watchful, the priesthood, for whom mainly this wonderful edifice has been constructed, and been progressing to perfection in its way for fifty generations, will patiently bide their time; and when it comes, if come it ever does, they will move with a policy, a courage, and a perseverance to command success; and the grandest and most awe-inspiring scenes of the Papal drama will be again reenacted on the theatre of the world. But whether it is the destiny of man to revolve back to Papal supremacy in all his affairs or not, that is the consummation to which |