ants who are Protestants only in name, and the very large portion of such who are wholly neglected, we own we see nothing unreasonable in the expectation that Popery will gain many more victims. In Mr. Bickersteth's tract on the Progress of Popery, eighteen parishes are enumerated, with their population and Protestant church-room-the latter does not provide for one-tenth of the whole of that population, which exceeds one million of souls! Then in Ireland, for years the proportion of Roman Catho lics to Protestants has been gradually and steadily increasing through the former laxity of the Established Church, the zeal of Popery, and the recent bitter persecutions which have tended so much to the encouragement of Protestant emigration. In that unhappy country there is a college, * Published in London, 1836; Seely and Burnside. We cannot refrain from using one quotation, which Mr. Bickersteth takes from Mr Scott-the able author, we presume, of the Continuation of Milner's Church History. It refers to the extent of Popish persecutions. "No computation can reach the numbers who have been put to death, in difierent ways, on account of their maintaing the profession of the Gospel, and opposing the corruptions of the Church of Rome. A million of poor Waldenses perished in France; 900,000 orthodox Christians were slain in less than thirty years after the institution of of the order of the Jesuits. The duke of Alva boasted of having put to death, in the Netherlands, 36,000, by the hands of the common executioner, during the space of a few years. The Inquisition destroyed, by various tortures, 150,000 within thirty years. These are a few specimens, and but a few, of those which history has recorded; but the total amount will never be known till the earth shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain " When to these things we add the days of Queen Mary in England, the Swedish butchery, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Sicilian Vespers, the Inquisition at Goa, the sup pression of the Reformation in Italy, the Irish massacre of 1641, the Council of Constance, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, truly we may well rally to resist the domination of the harlot, "drunk with the blood of the saints." But it is said, forsooth, Popery has changed; that the Ethiopian has changed his skin, and the leopard his spots! Oh mockery! We read, in the Record and Times recently, an account of the banishment of some hundreds of poor Protes tants from Zillerthal, in Tyrol. The incident recalls the recollection of Milton's noble sonnet on the persecution of the same people in Cromwell's time— a sonnet that should be in the very heart of every Englishman. "Avenge O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold: E'en them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, Forget not; in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold, Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow ↑ Besides the facts stated above, we call the attention of our readers to the following quotations from the "Catholic Directory" of 1838. They will show the spirit and progress of Popery in Ireland as clearly as anything with which we have ever yet met. Diocese of Ardagh.-"There are religious libraries and Christian doctrine confraternities in almost every parish; and it is hoped that ere long they will be established in all. With one or two exceptions, every parish has one or more newly built and slated chapels." * 'Education has been greatly extended during the last few years; particularly that religious education which consists in an accurate knowledge of the mysteries and other saving truths of Christianity."--Catholic Directory, page 101. So much for the national system of education! * "Religion has been steadily advancing in the Diocese of Dromore. Although one of the smallest and certainly one of the poorest dioceses in Ireland, yet within the last few years sixteen new chapels have been built, and some of them among the best and most tasteful erections in the country."-Page 105. supported by public money, for the free education of priests; and of these there are now scarcely less than 2000, with four archbishops, twenty-three bishops, eight colleges, besides Maynooth, several monasteries and many convents, nunneries, societies, clubs, and private seminaries. In Scotland, also, it is unfortunately too true that Popery has been of late rapidly advancing, particularly in the west. In Glasgow alone there are now 30,000 Roman Catholics, and even in Sterling they have recently erected a handsome chapel. In the colonies they have, under various names, as for instance, the Bishop of Trinidad, is called Bishop of Olympus, bishops at the following places :-Quebec, with a coadjutor; Montreal, with a coadjutor; Hudson's Bay; Kingston, Upper Canada, with a coadjutor; Newfoundland; St Johns, New Brunswick; Nova Scotia; Trinidad; Ceylon; Jamaica; Mauritius; Madras; Calcutta ; Australasia; Cape of Good Hope. In all these places they have extensive establishments. In Ceylon, their bishop is only lately appointed; and in the Catholic Magazine of Sep. tember 1838, just published, they boast of having 100,000 persons attached to their church in that island. In India they pretend to 600,000; and though that number is questionable, still it is not denied that their converts constitute no inconsiderable portion of the southern population. In Trinidad nearly the whole people are Roman Catholics, and sixteen new missionaries have lately sailed to complete the Popish victory.* From New South Wales, Bishop Broughton, the excellent Protestant diocesan wrote to the Christian Knowledge Society in January 1836, to the following effect:-Protestantism is much endangered in this colony; the efforts of Rome in this country are almost incredible. It is traversed by the agents of Rome. I earnestly desire means of counteracting their machinations. The Protestant schools can be maintained no longer, and a grant is required to maintain schools in connection with the church, and in the churches themselves." In Canada, Popery is the established religion of one province, and is liberally assisted in the other; while, during the period that intervened between 1831 and 1835, although 300,000 more emigrants had arrived out, the grant to the established church was gradually diminished from L.16,000 per annum to L.3,500 per annum. In the Cape of Good Hope, much has already been done in Graham's-Town, and elsewhere; particularly in the new parts of the colony. In Newfoundland the Roman Catholics form a majority of the House of of Assembly, and have gained otherwise a complete ascendency. A petition was presented to Parliament last session by Mr Gladstone, signed by 927 respectable inhabitants of the town of St John's which was ordered to be printed. From this important document we extract the following passage: "In this Island the population of which may be estimated at 75,000, of whom about one-half are Protestants and the other half Roman Catholics, it able House that there are no legal dismay be proper to remind your Honourtinctions affecting any class of Her Majesty's subjects; and were the Roman Catholics permitted to follow the impulses of their own minds, and to act individually as their own wishes might prompt them, there would be no cause for apprehending that they would differ from their neighbors in matters of a civil nature. But it unfortunately happens that their clergy have acquired a thoroughly despotic and absolute con There are only seventeen parishes in Dromore, and yet we hear of sixteen new chapels! "In no city within the same short space have so many religious and charitable institutions sprung up as in the metropolis of Ireland. The metropolitan church in Marlborough street, and the new church of St Andrew, in Westlan Row, and St Paul, Arran Quay, are splendid proofs of the zeal and piety of the Catholic inhabitants of Dublin. That capital and its environs can now boast of twenty Catholic churches, one monastery, fourteen convents, five institutions of the Sisters of Charity, three Si ters of Mercy, six charitable societies for promoting spiritual and corporal works of mercy," &c. &c.-Page 109 Diocess of Ossory." Some new chapels and convents are in progress.”— Page 114. The Roman Catholic population of Cloyne and Ross, by the last census, amount to nearly 400,000, and give an average of nearly 7.000 to each parish., -Page 130. See the Report of the Church Missionary Society for 1838. page 80. trol over a very large proportion of the lower orders of their creed, by which means they are enabled to concentrate and direct the efforts of the body against each member individually to an extent that would scarcely be credited by any who do not witness their conduct, and in a way that is altogether destructive of the civil and religious liberties of the people at large. com "In the first place, they denounce them from the altar as persons hostile to the priests, and as opposed to the authority of their Church, and warn their congregations not to deal or hold any intercourse, designating them monly as mad dogs;' a term by which it is understood that the individuals to whom it is applied have not adopted the political views of their priests, and are therefore to be regarded as if excommunicated; and being thus branded, they are to a very considerable, and in some instances to a ruinous extent, injured in their business, are constantly exposed to much personal insult, and are not unfrequently ill treated in the open streets by the lower orders of their own creed, who deem it a meritorious service thus to carry into effect the denunciations of their own priests." In the South Seas, equal activity is displayed. Dr Lang the principal of the Church of Scotland College in New South Wales, writing home on the 6th October, 1836, thus expresses himself: "The moral influence of the Christian church of New South Wales will extend eventually to the neighboring islands of New Zealand, containing a native population of half a million of souls, and comprising an extent of territory almost equal to that of the British Islands; to the western islands of the Pacific, numberless, and teeming with inhabitants; to the Indian Archipelago, that great nursery of nations; to China itself. That the Romish propagande have already directed their vulture eye to this vast field of moral influence, and strewn it, in imagination, with the carcasses of the slain, is unquestionable. Spanish monks and friars have within the last few years been sent from the recently formed republics of the South American to the eastern islands of the Pacific Other groups, still more distant from the American continent, have recently been surveyed and taken possession of by Romish missionaries direct from France; and the Roman Catholic Bishop of New South Wales is already taking his measures for co-operating with those misionaries from the westward, by transforming the sons of Irish convicts in New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land into missionary priests, and dispersing them over the length and breadth of the vast Pacific.” In the United States, although it is not forty years since the first Roman Catholic see was created, the Christian Observer, as quoted by Mr Bickersteth, states, "there is now a Catholic population of 600,000 souls under the government of the Pope, an archbishop of Baltimore, twelve Bishops, and 341 priests. The number of churches is 401; masshouses, about 300; colleges, ten; seminaries for young men, nine; theological seminaries, five; novitiates, for Jesuits, monasteries and convents with academies attached, thirty-one; seminaries for young ladies, thirty; schools of the sisters of charity, twentynine, an academy for coloured girls at Baltimore; a female infant school; and seven Catholic newspapers." In the West Indies unexampled efforts are now made among all classes, principally from the missionaries of Cuba. where Popery reigns in undisturbed supremacy and unrivalled splendour. Even in China, beyond the borders of which Protestants have failed to penetrate, and whence they are now effecttually though we trust only for a time excluded, the Jesuits have been working with a marvellous courage worthy of a better cause, and with a success which may well justify their boasting. There is no corner of the globe which their restless feet have not invaded; there is no danger they have not bi ved; there is no artifice they have scorned; and of course, scruple has been allowed to deter men no For the boasting to which we allude, and other important information on the subject of Roman Catholic missions, we must refer to "Dr Wiseman's Lectures, London, 1837,', and the "Roman Catholic Missions of Australasia, by W. Ullathome, D. D., Vicar-General." Published, Liverpool, Rockliff and Duckworth, 1837. S me of the statements of the former work, particularly those relating to Protestant missions, have been refuted in the Rev. James Hough's" Protestant Missions Vindicated." Seely, London, 1837. By the Catholie Directory of 1838, it appears that the Papists actually have two bishoprics in China. who proclaim that "the end can sanctify the means." We believe it must be admitted, however, that the difficulties they encounter are not equal to those with which the Protestants contend. It is not very difficult to make a Papist of a Pagan. No one who has read Southey's History of Brazil can be astonished at the success of Roman Catholics in their Missionary efforts, and no one who has read Dr. Buchanan's "Christian Researches," and noted there the horrors inflicted on their victims, and the apology for Christianity taught by them, can have the slightest sympathy with their exertions. To them, if to any in the present day, applies the awful censure, "Woe unto ye Pharisees, ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more a child of hell than your. selves." But it is with the facts we have now to do; we wish chiefly to show that they have progressed; we leave others to determine how and why. We find in Europe symptoms that Popery is once more at war with the Bible, and struggling for ancient as cendency. The following extract is from a fulmination of the Bishop of Bruges, dated Lent, 1838. We take it from the Monthly Extracts of the Bible Society of the 30th April, and it is accompanied with a notification that similar decrees have been made in France. “We are desirous that all our diocesans should be apprised anew, that it is severely prohibited to every one, who is not provided with special permission to read and hold forbidden books, to purchase a Bible, or a commentary on the Bible, or any other books, whatever, of the emissaries of the Bible Society, or to receive them gratis, or to retain such copies as they have in their possession. In any case we deem it our duty to state, that while holding error in detestation, individuals are nevertheless bound to abstain from all acts of violence towards the emissaries of the society in question; the constituted authorities alone being empowered by the laws, both human and divine, to employ force of arms and the exercise of justice." Such is freedom in that popishly revolutionized land! In Holland, we hear with deep sorrow, that superstition is again making way, and is rapidly beating down that Protestant vanguard of Europe. In Leyden, three Roman Catholic chapels have been erected, and we understand on unquestionable authority, progress has been made to an alarming extent. In France, the Archbishop of Paris has ventured on that which few Frenchmen now attempt-the counteraction of their arbitrary king. He has addressed the monarch, and has commenced to agitate for a renewal of the pomp and power of Romanism; and, with his party, he has already rendered the educational system as closely Popish as possible. In the Rhenish provinces of Prussia,* the Archbishop of Cologne has preferred the authority of the Pope to that of the King, and in direct contravention of the law, has displayed the bigotry of his religion, by forbidding Roman Catholics marry Protestants. In Tyrol, as we have already mentioned in a note, hundreds have been banished from their native land, and expelled even beyond the extreme borders of the whole Austrian Empire for daring to worship the God of their fathers as those ancient times. Thus in every part of champions of truth dared to do in the world, Popery now in close al liance with infidelity is pursuing its triumphant course, is trampling on the consciences of mankind; rendering whole districts desolate of the word of life; and thwarting with systematic zeal, the genuine ministers of the gospel. One short step more will enable that despotic power to complete the victory, to attack all recusants with pristine cruelty, and convert the most faithful countries into to * In the Rhenish provinces the Roman Catholic population amounts to 1,678,475 souls. In the whole Prussian dominions, inclusive of those provinces, the number is not less than 6,000,000! In Nassau, they form nearly three-fifths of the population, and in both Baden and Bavaria, they are more than double the number of all the various Protestant sects. In Hanover there are upwards of 200,000 Roman Catholics, and in Austria they constitute the mass of the community. Such, also, is the case in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Sicily, Sardinia, South America, Madeira, parts of Greece, Ireland, the Azores, the Cape de Verd Islands, the Phillipine Islands, Lower Canada, Martinique, Isle of France, &c. &c. &c. VOL. XLIV. 43 slaughter-house. of afflicted truth. Every where under fraudulent liberal pretences the Roman Catholics are gaining over the unwary; and on such they are fastening the clanking fetters which our nobler ancestors, swelling with the dignity of freemen, burst asunder. The Jesuits who were put down when it was convenient to be quiscent, and when the jealous eyes of real Protestants were watching every trick, and were prepared to resist every nefarious design, are now called again into action, and are allowed in a degenerate age to undermine with impunity, and to prosper without remark. Nothing intrigue could procure is wanted, nothing falsehood could purchase is required, nothing concentrated ability and enormous wealth could obtain is now unpossessed by the Papists. With each concession they have obtained, their demands have increased; with every victory they have won, their morbid ambition has risen; and with accumulated strength, with augmented power, with expanded hopes, they have applied themselves to each fresh undertaking,-resolved however even if that be gained, to deem it nothing more important than an "instalment." But let us look at home, and scrutinize more narrowly in our own once free and blessed land the insidious and successful encroachments of Popery. In 1793, the franchise was granted to the Roman Catholics, and they were rendered admissible to corporations; in 1795, the grant was made to the College of Maynooth, and shortly after they were admitted to the bar and to the higher ranks of the army. They then clamoured in Ireland and petitioned in England to be admitted to the legislature, making sundry plausible professions as to their intentions and principles. Those are very well known, but they cannot be too generally circulated, and therefore we will give specimens, and three only. In 1805, a petition was presented to Parliament, signed among others by Mr. O'Connell, praying for "Emancipation." The petitioners *stated. "That the Roman Catholic party felt bound to defend the right of pro perty as established by the laws now in being, and they solemnly abjured all and every idea of subverting the Church, or of using any privilege that might be granted to them to effect that object." In 1812, a similar petition was presented in an emphatic speech by Mr. Brougham; that petition said, "We distinctly disavow any intertion to subvert the Protestant Establishment, for the purpose of substituting a Roman Catholic Establishment in its stead."* Lastly, in 1826, the Roman Catholic bishops addressed the Protestants of England in a document, of which the following is an extract. 66 Bearing equally with you, our fellow subjects, the burdens of the country, and upholding equally its institutions and its glory, we claim to be admitted to a full participation in all the rights of British subjects. Every principle and practice hostile, in the remotest degree, to those institutions, we most explicitly disclaim. Year after year we repeat the humiliating task of disavowal, still we suffer the penalties of guilt." These, and many other similar declarations, deluded a very large portion of the people; and at length Parliament was recommended to consider the Roman Catholic claims. The King's speech on that occasion was as follows: His Majesty recommends that you take into your deliberate consideration the whole condition of Ireland, and that you should review the laws which impose civil disabilities on his Roman Catholic subjects. You will consider whether the removal of those disabilities can be effected consistently with the full and permanent security of our Establishments in Church and State, with the maintenance of the reformed religion established by law, and of the rights and privileges of the bishops and of the clergy of this realm, and of the churches committed to their charge." In answer to that speech, all parties in both houses unanimously concurred in an address, pledging themselves to have those important objects in view when settling this long agitated question. Consequently, two *For these, and very many other interesting particulars, see the Bishop of Exeter's admirable speech, delivered March 1, 1838, published by the Protestant Association. |