"The unworthy member for our' county Russell, Mr Bell, introduced a bill purporting to give equal rights to the Roman Catholic minority in Upper Canada with those of the Protestant minority of Lower Canada. The common schools are under the priests, and the tenets of the Romish faith are taught, so that, while Roman Catholics in Upper Canada can send their children to the common schools without danger, Protestants in Lower Canada can only send with the knowledge that their boys and girls will be taught the doctrines of Rome. The Protestants of Lower Canada demanded from the Government provision for their children's education. A bill was prepared, which would have proved a remedy for the evil, but, as it was passing through parliament, this new bill for Upper Canada was introduced, which was so offensive to the Upper Canada members, that both bills were thrown out."

CATHOLIC VERSUS ROMAN CATHOLIC.

A VERY satisfactory competition has just terminated in regard to the use of the term "Catholic" by the apostate Church of Rome. The result of the competition will be understood by the following minute:

In the Library-Room of the Protestant Institute of Scotland, Edinburgh, on 22d November 1866, met the adjudicators of the prizes offered in January last, for the three best essays on "The fallacious and mischievous use of the terms Catholic,' or Holy Catholic,' as applied to the Church of Rome,"-viz., the Rev. Drs Begg, M'Lauchlan, and Wylie.

After conference it was unanimously agreed that of the twenty-two essays which have been lodged in competition, the essay bearing the motto -"Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus," was entitled to the first prize. On the corresponding sealed envelope being opened, it was found that the author of this essay was William Arthur Darby, M.A., F.R.A.S., Rector of St Luke's, Manchester. That the essay bearing the motto:"The world is still deceived with ornament in religion. What damned error but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes

Some mark of virtue on his outward parts,"

was entitled to the second prize. On the corresponding sealed envelope being opened, it was found that the author of this essay was James D. Lawrence, student, care of Mr George Lawrence, merchant, Lerwick, Shetland. That the essay bearing the motto "apa" was entitled to the third prize. The corresponding sealed envelope being opened, it was found that the author was J. F. C. Williams, Halford House, Regent's Park, London. That whilst many of the essays are excellent, the essay bearing the motto, "Great names debase instead of raising those who do not know how to use them," was entitled to special mention, and that the author should be presented with a book. On the corresponding sealed envelope being opened, it was found that the author was Jacob Primmer, student, 26 Tolbooth Wynd, Leith.

The adjudicators expressed their great satisfaction at the result of this competition, and requested the Secretary to remit the prizes to the several successful competitors, and to express to the gentlemen who have contributed for the prizes their deep sense of the importance of this competition. The Secretary was also instructed to return the essays to the other competitors on their being applied for, and to hand the essay which gained the first prize to the Editor of the Bulwark for publication if he should see fit. [This excellent essay will be published in our pages soon. -ED.]

THE FIRST COMMUNION AT GENEVA.

WHEN the sermon was over, Farel prepared to celebrate the Lord's supper publicly, according to the gospel form, and, standing with his brethren, Viret and Froment, before a table, he gave thanks, took the bread, broke it, and said, "Take, eat ;" and then, lifting up the cup, he added, "This is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for the remission of sins." The believers were beginning to draw near to receive the communion of the Lord, when an unexpected circumstance fixed their attention. A priest of noble stature, wearing his sacerdotal robes, left the place where he had been sitting among the congregation, and approached the table. It was Louis Bernard, one of the twelve habilités of the cathedral, and brother of him who had been touched at the time of Farel's first preaching. Was he going to say mass, did he want to dispute with Farel, or had he been converted? All were anxious to see what would happen. The priest went up to the table, and then, to the general surprise, he took off his sacerdotal vestments, flung away cape, alb, and stole, and said aloud, "I throw off the old man, and declare myself a prisoner to the gospel of the Lord." Then, turning to the reformers and their friends, he said, "Brethren, I will live and die with you for Jesus Christ's sake." All imagined they saw a miracle, and their hearts were touched. Farel received Bernard like a brother: he broke bread with him, gave him the cup, and, eating of the same morsel, the two adversaries thus signified that they would in future love one another with a sincere and pure affection.-The Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, by D'Aubigné, vol. iv. pp. 363–64.

POPERY IN VENICE.

THE following striking remarks in regard to the prostrate state of Popery in Venice, are from the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph :I have dwelt at some length on matters ecclesiastical, for the reason that your readers may be desirous to learn what is the precise "attitude" of the Venetian clergy, in view of the astonishing change of public things which has come down upon them very much after the manner of a cart-load of bricks. I remember that Mr Dickens, in his " American Notes," mentions an inquisitive Yankee, who, occupying the next state-room to him on board a steamer, was very uneasy in his mind at the undemonstrative course of conduct pursued by his illustrious fellowtraveller. "Boz keeps himself very quiet, my dear," he was heard, through the bulkhead, to observe to his wife. The truth was that Boz had a bilious headache, and was lying down in his berth. The black Boz in Venice is keeping, just now, very quiet indeed. The black panther is couchant-not rampant. So have I seen the real panther at the Jardin des Plantes, curled up in a corner of his den, lazily blinking in the sunshine, and disdaining to roar, to glare, or to spring, when the naughty little gamins threw nutshells at him. Could he be the real panther of Java who bounds through the air, and makes a man into a mummy in one squeeze and one crunch? Yes, he is the same old beast, only the day is warm, and the times are dull, and he does not exactly see what good might come out of tearing up the planks of the den or dashing his head against those iron bars. He waits. A bright time may come when he may crunch bones, and suck marrow, and eat man again. This is about the attitude of the priesthood. They are quiescent. They crouch in the corner of the cage. They fear the popular beast-tamer, with his gutta percha whip or his stronger crowbar. They wait. In common, I hope, with most Englishmen born and bred in an atmosphere of respectable sectarian prejudice, I have been much shocked to see that Venice has gotten her liberty, that the Aus

trians have gone away, that the Italian banner has been hoisted, and that the Italian troops have piled arms on St Mark's Place, without a single Te Deum, without the tingle of a single bell or the smoke of a single censer, or the flare of a single taper, or the apparition of a single stole, alb, or dalmatic. What has become of the Church of Rome in the Italian peninsula? Where is it? Who believes in it? Who asks for it? Who looks for the priest to bless the work, to utter a prayer over the newly unfurled banner of freedom? Certainly not the Italians. If you really wish to know where Rome's friends are, you must inquire at Munich or at Madrid, in the Graben, or of the beadle of St Germain l'Auxerrois. You must ask at Baltimore or at Brompton. Were you to address yourself to the majority of people in Italy you would be told that the Church of Rome did not lodge there. This is the naked, unpalatable, and incontestable truth. In the hearts of all Italians—save some ignorant peasants, some savage brigands, some half-imbecile old women, and some gour men in shovel hats-the Romish idolatry is DEAD. It is as dead as any dog that ever hung. It is dead, notwithstanding the existence of some clerical journals -notwithstanding the performance of the usual incantations in the all-but-deserted churches-notwithstanding the fact that there are here and there half-demented people who tell their beads, who make votive offerings of silver ears and noses in gratitude for their recovery from deafness or polypus, and make pilgrimages, with peas in their shoes, to the shrine of St Bosfursus, or rub their bellies with a portrait of St Joachim to keep away the cholera morbus. You may buy these same portraits in the city of Venice itself. They are printed on thick flannel. Everybody knows that friction with woollen stuff is an excellent stomachic; but I am inclined to think that the effigy of Mr Stead, the "perfect cure," would be quite as efficacious as that of St Joseph on the strip of flannel. The fraudulent intent is, however, delicious. There are Italian-born and Italian-speaking people who continue to place faith in these mummeries; but they do not constitute the nation. The nation has utterly and entirely repudiated Papistry-Paganism's eldest daughter. They have done with the barbarous swindling system altogether. I do not believe that Voltairianism, Straussism, Hegelism, Renanism, or any other particular ism, is making much way in Italy. The people have simply abandoned one religion because they have discovered it to be wicked, mischievous, and useless; and they are looking out for another. I hope they may find a good one.

To the Editor of the Bulwark.

LEICESTER, Nov. 1866.

3. As a

DEAR SIR,-The above letter, from a correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, is so deeply interesting to me as containing (in the latter part) a description of the condition of Popery in Italy, that I take the liberty of enclosing the extract. Were it published in your excellent periodical it might do good in several ways::-1. As a loud call upon British Protestants to enter through the door which, in the wonderful providence of the Lord, is now open at Venice. This keen-sighted writer, in his own way of speaking about religion says,-" They are looking out for another (religion), I hope they will find a good one." 2. As an indisputable proof of the decay of Popery in Popish lands, where for ages it has had unrestrained sway. terrible testimony against the Romanising party in the English National Church. What a degradation to a man to be an instrument of propagating in a Protestant Church, that religion which is seen to be repudiated by even those who for generations knew not a better, because such was kept out of their land by penal laws! What a reflection upon the understanding, or the consciences of those Romanising teachers! They must know these facts, and of course they know also that numbers in this country, and amongst their distinguished prelates of this very Church, went to the stake for their protest against those very doctrines, which hundreds of the teachers in the same Church are now preaching, and for rejecting such "performances" as these clergymen are exhibiting! Well then, as they know those things, one cannot but ask, Where is their conscience? Wishing not to be uncharitable, one feels amazed, puzzled, and perplexed to see such things at this hour. If these teachers are blind they are to be pitied. If not blind, what must we say of them? I wish all of them who are wishful to follow Popish practices would get out of a Protestant Church to do so, and be off to Venice, and try to keep up the fabric there

by telling the Venetians that they have better knowledge of Popery than the people there can possibly have. We should at all events be delivered from a plague worse than the rinderpest.

Having long been a reader of the Bulwark, and in sympathy with the "Scottish Reformation Society," I beg to tender to you my sincere thanks for your valuable services to the cause of truth and liberty. May your efforts be increasingly successful. I am, &c., T. MITCHELL.

THE RITUALISTS AND THE BISHOP OF OXFORD.

THE Times newspaper is doing good service by admitting into its widely-circulated columns frequent exposures of the doings of the ritualistic party in the Church of England, and we have reason to know that a very considerable spirit of resistance is being awakened. It is hoped that this will be well directed and vigorously sustained. Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne, by his powerful letters, is taking a lead on the right side. The following extract from one of his letters is both instructive and suggestive. The reference at the end is to the Bishop of Oxford. We have seen the photograph referred to, and it has since been admitted that the bishop stood for it :

One of the worst features of this powerful school is the way they openly deal with the very young. I have a book before me, openly used in some churches, to aid the devotions of " young persons, especially choristers." The doctrine of transubstantiation is openly taught in it. These children are taught to adore "the elements" when consecrated, to pray then and there that this sacrificial offering may be applied to the "joy and refreshment" of the dead. There is a thorough teaching in almost every doctrine which our Church, thank God, repudiates. I have another book, published at Oxford, as a prayer-book for the young; it professes to give Church teaching to children under twelve years of age. I can hardly conceive anything more pernicious, if it was not for the fact that young brains could only be mystified and dulled, not really taught, by such a course of severe mysticism. Here the same doctrines are inculcated, the same attempt is made to cause children to regard the clergymen as priests with miraculous powers. The attempt to make young children believe in the miracle of the altar, as worked in their presence, if it was not so fearfully traitorous to the place and the service, would almost admit of being considered comic. To expect a child under twelve years of age to really accept seriously the directions given, is, in my poor opinion, a sad proof of utter ignorance of childhood; you might just as well give a lesson in mathematics. Child-faith is not so easily won by statements of the wonderful, and for all it sees; why it is just the clergy it knows out of robes in them, doing certain acts with extraordinary ceremony in a place, the handsome decoration of which and its incense become so familiar, that the things done are only part of a scene which oft repetition makes to the very young a mere church lesson, in a highly scented and richly decorated school. Children are not theologians susceptible to the claims of any school of divines. Ordinary services once a week are no slight trial when Sunday school is superadded; frequent Sundaying, and the fitting of their young minds into the grooves of that school of divinity which this book belongs to, is altogether foreign to everything of a child that is childish. There is throughout the book proof that the young-the very young-are taught that the priest is to be the chief director of their life, they are to come to him for frequent confession, they are warned of the peril to their souls if they do not, they are assured of complete absolution if they do. I wish, sir, I could stop here, but my duty to the public compels me to add that some of the directions for full confession on the part of children-the very young-are such as no one possessed of ordinary decency can read without indignation. Such things as the advertisements of a certain class of quack doctors only allude to, are put into this book with little, if any, disguise whatever. I think any parent finding this book in the hands of boy or girl, given or recommended by the priest, would be justified, morally, in far stronger steps towards him than perhaps would be legally justifiable. I am quite sure I should feel so myself. It is an out