acknowledging this truth, they call themselves the German Catholic Church of Christ. Those who form this Catholic Church stand out from their old tyrants. They do but step aside, and cease to fear them, and they find to their surprise and joy that there is no need to fear them; and that all the power of the priests rested upon their own slavish obedience. Whole congregations have turned from the priests; and though the priests excommunicate them all, yet they all communicate together, and so they excommunicate the priests. At the present time, there are, however, twenty-six priests who have left Rome, and joined Ronge and Czerski, and helped to arrange the German Catholic Church; and this Church is now formed in one hundred and ninety-three different towns and places in Germany.

The articles of faith which these Catholics have adopted is the same in substance as the ancient Christians held from the time of our Lord Himself, and can be proved from the Word of God. In contrast from the Romish Church they maintain, amongst others, the following points :

1. They maintain that every man has a right to read the Book of God for himself; and they refuse to believe what is told them about the other world, or the way to be saved, unless they can see for themselves that it can be proved out of that blessed Book.

2. They will not allow the worship offered up to God to be spoken in a language which the people do not understand.

or to

3. They refuse to pray to dead men and women; believe that their bones, and the things that belonged to them while living, have any power to heal or to help.

4. They deny that Christians are called upon to acknowledge the Bishop of Rome as having any power from St. Peter, or any peculiar authority from Christ; and they refuse to acknowledge themselves bound to obey him or his agents.

5. They maintain that no man has power, by a word or touch, to turn either bread or wine into the "whole body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ" and they claim the right of the laity to partake of both the bread and the wine in

the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as well as those who administer that holy ordinance.

6. They maintain that the clergy have no right to require the people to confess to them, before they will give them the Lord's Supper.

7. They maintain that marriage is honourable, and holy, and good, for all classes of persons; and that the clergy may and ought to marry as well as the people.

Oh! if there were no waters between the Shannon and the Rhine, there would be no need to give a man of Kerry a spyglass, and send him to the top of Carran-tuel, to bring his countrymen an account of all this; for surely the report of it must have found its way along the villages that would then cover the ground that the waves wash now; and spite of priest or Pope, the poor Irish Romans would then get a chance of tasting something of the liberty wherewith Christ makes souls free, in the place of the bondage with which the Pope makes souls slaves. Even the poor fellows that make a yearly pilgrimnge to gather the harvests of other nations might then have lengthened their long journey, and gathered in Germany a harvest of God's truth for themselves, and stored it up and brought it home for their wives and their children. What might be expected to have happened in such a case as that? Let us gather from the knowledge of what has really happened in Germany, what might then be taking place in dear old Ireland.

The news would arrive in some little town in Ireland that thousands upon thousands of Roman Catholic Germans had declared themselves Catholic without being Roman-had left their priests in a body, and found that the priests could do them no harm for it-had dared, one and all, to read God's Book, in spite of the priests forbidding them. Then many an Irishman that heard it would take courage, and talk freely and boldly to his Catholic neighbour; and if some among the better scholars and upper people did this, they would feel it to be a time for stepping forward to help their brothers, and would venture to take a little more upon themselves than in common times they

would like to do. And many a company of the poorer ones would agree together to go to some of the upper sort, and call upon them to come forward and help them. Then remembering that the priests are men and brothers too, whose hearts can be touched by the power of the same God, who has all hearts at his command, all the wise and awakened Catholics in the place would go together to the priest of the place-be he Curate, or Vicar-General, or the Bishop himself, and they would tell him that they were determined, from that moment, to be true Christian Catholics; and that they began to be so by leaving the communion of Rome, and by being in communion amongst themselves as Irish, not Roman, Catholics. Then they would invite the priest to join them, and bid him give a proof that he did so by at once reading the Bible to them, and saying Mass in their own tongue instead of Latin; and by administering to some proper persons amongst them the wine of the Holy Communion, as well as the bread.

The priest would either follow the example of Ronge, and agree to join the people, or he would refuse. If he agreed, then the people would rejoice, and hail him as one appointed by God to help in directing them right, instead of leading them in the wrong way as of old. They would choose out three or four, or half a dozen of their lay brothers in whom they had confidence, and they would appoint them as the Care-takers to watch for the ordering which God's providence might make necessary— they would bid these take counsel with the fatherly pastor whom the goodness of God had provided for them by turning the heart of the priest; and then leaving the matter for the present in these hands, they would wait a while in prayer and patience, till new events called them to maintain their new position of freedom.

But if the priest should refuse to join the people, or to separate himself from the tyrant system of the Pope of Rome, then would come the test of courage and of confidence in God. It is written in the book of God concerning Rome, "And I heard another VOICE FROM HEAVEN, saying, COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE, that ye be not partakers of

her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Rev. xviii. 4) ; and the time to which that voice from heaven referred is now nigh at hand. Christians dare not let the refusal of a Popish priest make them refuse to obey the voice of God. The Spirit that would move the people in any parish in Ireland to go so far as to ask the priest to join them in leaving Rome, would move them on, though they were forced to leave their priest behind them, after giving him a chance of getting free along with themselves.

Then the people would choose out half a dozen, it may be, of the fittest and the wisest men amongst them, and just put the management of the future concerns of the Irish Catholic Church into their hands, and keep quiet at home in constant earnest prayer that the Lord would mercifully bless all their deliberations; and what the half dozen Care-takers decided for the course of conduct for the whole, that would each member willingly consent to.

But what course would the company of Care-takers pursue? The course may be difficult, but not doubtful. They would first select a proper person to act for the present as LEADER IN PRAYER, and they would provide for him the bestwritten prayers they can procure in their own tongue, to suit the feelings of the people; and they would call the people together twice on every Sunday to join in these prayers, and to hear the Book of God read by the leader; and they would commend the head of every family who can read to make use of some of the same prayers, and of the same blessed book, every day in their own houses, in company with some of their neighbours. This arrangement could be only for a time, not to leave the Christian Catholics without the means of approaching God unitedly, at a period when God's presence amongst them was more than commonly required.

But having attended to this pressing want, the company of Care-takers would lose no time in consulting with their fellow-Catholics in the next parish, and in the neighbouring towns far and near; and as the news would have spread to one as well as another parish, God's work would appear in one as

well as in another; and so in many places many hearts would be moved, and that which might be wanting through the ignorance of one band of Irish Catholics would be supplied through the wisdom of another; and deputies from each little band would appoint a place and time to meet, and they would compare their circumstances and condition, and put the whole together to find the wisest way to act; and they would pray to God to direct them, and many Christian hearts would be praying for them, and it would be a one-hearted body this Irish Catholic Church. May He that is above all bless it!

Is there any Irishman that reads this who wants to know what next would be done in such a case? The news which would have been brought over to Ireland before now, if no sea separated it from Germany, has been longer delayed to be sure, but it has come at last, and the Irishman who reads this has heard the blessed sound; and if it is he that wants to know what would come next, let him and his Catholic neighbours set to work at once to get on as far as has been supposed already; and when he has come so far, then he himself shall be the man to tell us what will come next. Only one thing is sure, that the work that is begun for the glory of God and the freedom of souls is certain to be blessed in the end, through whatever difficulties and sufferings the Lord may see fit to bring us to the reward.

The following is the tract referred to in Chapter VII. :

III.

IRISHIMEN'S RIGHTS.

EVERY man has got his own RIGHTS, except the man that lets them be taken away from him; and it would not be hard to say what the like of such a man is, only that it is not civil to call names. Yet to have some rights, and not to know what they