" serve to say the paternoster and the creed, and not to understand the same for in so doing they should but mock and deride God. Then "said the bishop, Do you understand what is signified by these 66 words, I believe in God?' The bailiff answered, I should think myself very miserable if I did not understand it: and he began to give an account of his faith. Then said the bishop, I did not think "there had been such great doctors in Merindol.' The bailiff answered "The least of the inhabitants of Merindol can do it more readily than "I: but I pray you question one or two of these young children, that you may understand whether they be well taught or no.' But the bishop either knew not how to question them, or would not. On this a person named Pieron Roy said, 'Sir, one of these children may question with another, if you think fit; and the bishop consented. 66 Then one of the children began to question with his fellows, with as much grace and gravity as if he had been a schoolmaster; and the children, one after another, answered so to the purpose, that it was wonderful to hear them. When the bishop saw he could not thus prevail, " he tried another way, and went about by flattering words to effect his purpose. Wherefore he said, that he now perceived they were not so bad as many thought them to be; notwithstanding, to satisfy their persecutors, it was necessary that they should make some small ab"juration, which only the bailiff, with two officers, might make in his presence, in the name of all the rest, without any notary to record the same in writing; and by so doing they would obtain the favour even "of those who now persecuted them: and that this proceeding might "not be misrepresented, it should be reported only to the pope, and to the "high court of parliament of Provence. The CHILDREN, however, unanimously refused, and said that they conceived the way in which they "had been instructed was the pure faith of Jesus Christ, and that in abjuring it, they would be denying their Redeemer.” He This is as delectable a dish of the marvellous as we ever recollect seeing served up to satiate the palates of the most barbarously ignorant and credulous of the Protestant race. It has long been fashionable to charge Catholics with being too easy of belief and giving credit to the most absurd tales of the priesthood, but we defy the most determined opposer of the Catholic faith to produce a pretended fact from a Catholic writer that shall equal in absurdity and improbability the story we have just quoted. Who the bishop of Cavaillon is no one can tell, but admitting him to have been a real character, is it probable that he would have conducted himself as he is represented to have done. is pourtrayed as a dunce and a hypocrite, while the children of the Merindolians are diamonds of the first water. Now, if we understand John Fox, the Merindolians were of the reformed religion, but of what creed he doth not say. They are however opposed to the Catholic doctrine, and is it likely that a Catholic bishop should go amongst such a people, and not only command their children to say their prayers in a language they did not understand, but openly acknowledge that many of his dignified brethren were ignoramuses. John Fox, you may have been as cunning as the animal whose name you bear, but this story will not do in these days. It is here intended to cast an insinuation against the service of the Catholic church being said în Latin, and therefore the bishop is made to say that it was not requisite for their salvation that they (the children) should understand or expound the articles of their faith. Certainly not to expound them, because it is not to be expected that children are able to teach when they stand in need of being taught. It was always a principle however of the Catholic church, that the people should understand the articles of their faith, and for this purpose Christ the divine Founder of this church appointed pastors and teachers, to whom he promised the Spirit of Truth, which should lead them into all truth, and he commanded them to teach and instruct the people all that he had revealed to them. And the better to accomplish this, he gave them the gift of tongues, so that they spoke in the vernacular language of the people they preached to. To say that it is not necessary to understand the articles of faith is an insult to common sense, and could only be made by those who are void of that quality. In no instance whatever can the Catholic church be proved to have prevented the people from praying in their mother tongue, and the clergy were alway assiduous in expounding the scriptures to them in the same language. In fact, this is one of the ends for which they were appointed; and not, as is the case with Protestant preachers, to dupe the people out of their money and appropriate it to their own support, while they tell them to expound the faith for themselves. Then as to the learned bailiff of Merindol, Mr. Andrew Maynard; he is made to say that unless he understood what was signified in the words "I believe in God," he should be very miserable; and forthwith he gives the bishop an account of his faith, to the great surprise of the prelate. Now what kind of a faith master Andrew held we are not told; whether it agreed with the Waldenses, or the Albigenses, or was peculiar to the Merindolians, or any other reformed creed. This dealing in generals is very convenient to avoid detection, and therefore we must be content to leave the very knowing Mr. Andrew Maynard, bailiff of Merindol, in the year nothing, to enjoy his theological wisdom, while we look a little further into Fox's statement. Wise as the bishop found Andrew the bailiff, the latter had the very great modesty to underrate himself, and give the preference to the children of his town. A wonderful generation of religionists these Merindolians must have been, when the infant race were more wise than the experience of mature age. Well might the poor bishop exclaim, he "did not think there "had been such great doctors in Merindol." He, poor man, though a bishop, was an ignorant fellow compared to Andrew the bailiff; but how insignificant must he have appeared when the little Solomons began to question one another. The bishop was so confounded, it appears, with Andrew's astonishing lore, that he did not, or would not know how to question the young wiseacres, so one Pierron Roy is conjured up to propose that the infant theologians should question each other, to which the bishop consented. Now comes the grand trial; one more wise than all the rest, we presume, jumped up as the questioner, and he performed his part with so much grace and gravity, that it was charming to behold him, as well as wonderful to hear the pert answers that were given. Oh! astonishing race! but what a pity that so much learning and wisdom should not have descended to future generations. Well, the bishop was astounded, and well he might be, at witnessing such a set of young doctors in divinity; still he was not to be diverted from his purpose, and he now tried to cajole them by a species of flattery. They were not so bad now as he thought they were; but perfect as they appeared to be, something must be done to appease their persecutors. Who these persecutors were we are left to conjecture; hitherto the pope and the bishops have been described as the most relentless tormentors of the human race, but now a bishop is made the mediator. Well something must be done; some trifling concession must be made; and a small abjuration on the part of the bailiff and two officers in the presence of the bishop, would suffice. Furthermore, that this proceeding might not be misrepresented, it was not to be stated in writing, the only way we should have thought to prevent its being misrepresented, and it was only to be reported to the pope and the parliament, who we suppose were to be satisfied with this piece of hypocrisy,' and the Merindolians were to save their bacon. But mark, reader; whether the bailiff and grown up people were inclined to fall into the scheme of the bishop is not stated, but we are told that the CHILDREN, yes, the CHILDREN UNANIMOUSLY REFUSED to accede to the plan, declaring that they CONCEIVED," Oh! how ripe were their understandings; that they CONCEIVED the way in which they had been "instructed was the pure faith of Jesus, and that in abjuring it, they "would be denying their Redeemer." Let Munchausen beat that, and I will consent to become a believer in John Fox's Book of Martyrs. Not a word is said of the pure faith this race of Solomons had been instructed in; not a syllable of its doctrine. All is bare assertion; all is left to conjecture. After this specimen of the manner adopted by Fox to describe the persecutions of the Waldenses and Albigenses, we need enter no further in our remarks on that part of the book. " The next section is devoted to the relation of "PERSECUTIONS IN "FRANCE PREVIOUS TO AND DURING THE CIVIL WARS OF THAT NATION." -The first story told is the following:- "In the year 1524, at a town "in France called Melden, one John Clark affixed a bill on the church door, in which he called the pope antichrist: for this offence he was repeatedly whipped, and then branded in the forehead. His mother, who saw the chastisement, cried with a loud voice, 'Blessed be Christ, and welcome these marks for his sake.' He went afterwards " to Metz, in Lorraine, and demolished some images, for which he had “his right hand and nose cut off, and his arms and breasts torn by pincers; while suffering these cruelties, he sang the 115th psalm, which "expressly forbids superstition. On concluding the psalm, he was thrown into the fire and burnt to ashes."-Admitting this tale to be true, though we much doubt it in the whole, we will take leave here to ask, if this Protestant martyr did not give the first provocation? We are not going to justify the treatment he experienced, nor shall we applaud the zeal of his mother, who imagined he was suffering for Christ's sake, because he was punished for a breach of the peace and abusing the head of the Catholic church. Now, we should be glad to know if a Catholic were to fix up a bill against the door of St. Saviour's church, in the borough of Southwark, in which parish, we believe, the "few plain Christians" reside; if, we say, a Catholic were to fix up a bill against the said church door, reflecting on the character of his present - majesty as head of the church, and calling him by vile names, would he not be taken before a magistrate and punished for the offence? And would not these "plain Christians," who condemn the punishers of John Clark, be the first to approve of the sentence on the Catholic offender? We have not a doubt but they would, and not think it persecution either. And were he to have a mother encourage him under chastisement, as John Clark had, they would look upon her as a fanatic old woman. Then as to his demolishing of images; under what authority did he so act? Who gave him commission to begin the work of destruction? He might think these images were put to superstitious purposes, and while he confined his opinions to himself no one could reach him; but when he began to manifest the fruits of his opinions, he clearly became a violator of the law-a breaker of the peace-and therefore subjected himself to the penalty of the law. As we before said, we are not the defender of persecution, nor are we the justifier of cruel and unnecessary punishments; but we contend that John Clark did that for which he would be punished in this Protestant country, and therefore he is not entitled to the honour of being a martyr for religion. Suppose a Deist were to take it into his head to pull down and destroy the crosses which adorn the new Protestant churches just erected in this country; would he not feel the severity of the law for so doing? And would the "few plain Christians" place him among John Fox's martyrs in their next edition of the work? This John Clark was a carder of wool by trade, in the town of Meaux, according to father Daniel's history, not Melden, as Fox states erroneously. He is recorded by Theodore Beza as the first founder of the Calvinist churches of Meaux and Metz, as well as a martyr of that sect. Luther, it is here to be observed, began to dogmatize in 1517, six years before the period of Clark's execution; the pretended reformation had, of course, made some progress in Germany and France, and the outrageous conduct of Clark is considered the forerunner of those evils that afterwards afflicted the latter country. Clark was no doubt a disciple of Zuinglius, who began to preach against indulgences at Zurich in Switzerland, in the year 1519, two years after Luther had begun at Wittemberg. In the year 1522, he, in conjunction with some other priests that had embraced his party, presented a request to the civil magistrates of Switzerland, to be allowed to have wives, declaring that he and his had not the gift of continence, and that the deeds of the flesh had rendered them infamous, to the great scandal of the faithful. (See Zuinglius's works, t. i. p. 115.) Dr. Heylin, in his History of the Presbyterians, says, "The Zuinglian reformation was begun in de"facing images, (see the cut to this number) decrying the established "fasts and appointed festivals, abolishing set forms of worship, deny"ing the old Catholic doctrine of a real presence, and consequently all "external reverence in the participation of the blessed sacrament; a which Luther seriously laboured to preserve in the same estate in which he found them at present. They differed also in the doctrine " of predestination, which Luther taught according to the current of "the ancient fathers, who lived and flourished before the writings of St. Augustine; that the Romanists had not any thing to except against in that particular, when it was canvassed by the schoolmen "in the council of Trent." Thus it is indisputably clear, that this pretended martyr was a violator of the peace, and suffered for invading the security of society, not for his religious opinions. " 66 The next tale we shall notice is the following:-" Shortly after the " coronation of Henry the second, a tailor was apprehended for working on a saint's day; being asked why he gave such an offence to religion, his reply was, 'I am a poor man, and have nothing but my "labour to depend upon; necessity requires that I should be indus"trious, and my conscience tells me there is no day but the sabbath "which I ought to keep sacred from labour.' Having expressed him"self thus, he was committed to prison, and the affair being soon after "rumoured at court, some of the nobles persuaded the king to be pre"sent at the trial. On the day appointed, the monarch appeared in a "superb chair of state, and the bishop of Mascon was ordered to interrogate the prisoner. The tailor, on perceiving the king, paid his "obedience to him in the most respectful manner. The king was much affected with his arguments, and seemed to muse; on which “the bishop exclaimed, 'He is an obstinate and impudent heretic; "let him be taken back to prison, and burnt to death. The prisoner "was accordingly conveyed to prison; and the bishop artfully insinu"ated, that the heretics, as he called the reformed, had many spe"cious arguments, which, at first hearing, appeared conclusive; but on examination, they were found to be false. He then endeavoured "to persuade the king to be present at the execution, who at length "consented, and repaired to a balcony which overlooked the place. "On seeing the king, the tailor fixed his eyes steadfastly upon him, and even while the flames were consuming him, kept gazing in such a manner, as threw the monarch into visible confusion, and obliged him to retire before the martyr was dead. He was so much shocked, "that he could not recover his spirits for some time; and what added "to his disquiet was, his continually dreaming, for many nights, that he saw the tailor with his eyes fixed upon him, in the same manner as during the execution." -Whether this tale was invented as a counter-part of Henry the eighth's examination of Nicholson alias Lambert, for denying the real presence, we know not; but we cannot help thinking the poor tailor was highly honoured by the French king's receiving him in a superb chair of state. Monarchs now-a-days are not so condescending. But will any one, in his sober senses, believe that a king would trouble himself so much about a man's working on a saint's day? We think not; and when it is taken into consideration that there was not that system of taxation that now grinds the people to the earth; that there was not so much poverty, and consequently not so much necessity to work as in these days, we may put this story down as another fiction, invented to excite the ignorant to hatred against Catholicism. The relater would make us believe the tailor could make an impression upon the king though he could not on the bishop; and to get him burned, he is compelled to make the bishop a king, and the king a cypher. The bishop orders the poor tailor to prison and to be executed, and this too upon his bare command. Then the bishop persuades the king to be present, though he had before witnessed his merciful disposition towards the tailor. The king consents, and the " " " |