seas has had the happiness to embrace the only Christian faith that could lead them to salvation. There was a farce to be sure got up in London a few weeks ago, by these Bible and Missionary Saints, who introduced a king and queen of the Sandwich islands into the metropolis, and much notice was taken of them by a part of his Majesty's government. It was said that their Sandwich majesties were to have been introduced to his Britannic majesty had they not been prevented by another majesty, the grim king of terrors. We do not recollect the name of this Sandwich sovereign and his royal consort, but that is no great matter. He came over to England, and was represented as a convert to Christianity, made by the English missionaries. The conversion, therefore, of this petty monarch is, we presume, the conversion of the whole nation to the only Christian faith that could lead to eternal salvation. Well, be it so; but mark, reader, the conclusion. Their sable majesties had not been long in town before that fatal malady the small pox laid hold of them, and his majesty took it so to heart that he died, and was shortly after followed by his spouse. The public papers told us that he was a Christian, and they further informed us that though a Christian, yet he had several wives in his own country: thereby shewing that his kind of Christianity was a very easy one, seeing that it would allow him to have more wives than one. In every case where Pagan nations were converted by Catholic missionaries, both kings and people were compelled to relinquish their sensual passions and keep themselves continent. Only one lawful wife was per→ mitted, though Pagan custom might have allowed an unlimited plurality, and not an instance can be named where a sovereign was admitted to the sacraments of the church that did not consent to renounce polygamy. Our modern missionaries, however, do not seem to be so rigid in their discipline; and if such be the Christian faith which is to lead the Sandwichers to salvation, we shall, for our part, prefer the old road, which was taught by the apostles and their successors, and has been followed by every nation that held to the Catholic church.

Before we quit this part of the globe, we cannot help contrasting the success of the Chinese and Japan missionaries, and that of the modern gentlemen sent to the South seas by the London Missionary society. The latter, we are told, laboured hard, till some died and others returned without producing any fruit, though they ploughed with the bible. It was not till the lapse of ten years that a blossom appeared upon the tree, and whether it be real or fictitious is very doubtful, as we have no authentic clue on which to ground the fact, and certain we are that, allowing the nameless nation to have embraced the doctrines of these missionaries, the creed they have received is not the creed taught by the apostles. Let us now look to the empires of China and Japan. In the former we see it related, on authority, that hundreds of thousands of souls embraced the Catholic faith on the preaching of a few poor Jesuits, and two hundred churches were raised by the converts. We see a persecution created to prevent the increase of the Catholic faith; we see the new converts laying down their lives for this faith, and fresh ones springing up in their stead, animated with the heroic constancy and fortitude displayed by these Catholic Christian martyrs. In Japan we see thousands of Pagans renouncing their errors and em

bracing the rigid system of Catholicism by the preaching of one missionary, divinely commissioned, St. Francis Xavier. We see these fruits raised almost instantaneously by the fructifying word of God, orally delivered, not bound up in a book; and we see the same effects as were produced in China. Princes and persons of rank became the disciples of a crucified God, as well as the meanest of the people; submission was rendered in spirituals to the see of Rome; churches were raised for the public worship of that God, whose doctrines they believed in; and persecutions followed to sift the chaff from the wheat. But where are the persecutions to try the faith of the Sandwichers? Where are the churches raised in honour of the God of Truth? When we have seen these highly-favoured Christians, who are stated to have adopted the only faith that could lead them to salvation, laying down their lives for this faith, as Catholics in every age and every country have done;-when we see them erect splendid temples and offer up the divine sacrifice as the first apostles and the primitive Christians did;-then, indeed, we will allow the truth of my lord Bexley's statement;-but till then we must consider the newly made peer as labouring under a great mistake, led away, probably, by artful misrepresentations.

Mr. Butler agrees with Fox as to the fact of the opposition made in Japan to the persecutors by some of the Christians, but he speaks of their conduct in very different terms. The language used by Fox implies approbation of this resistance, whereas Mr. Butler plainly states it was unjustifiable, and very opposite to that of the primitive Christians. Rebellion, or resistance to lawful authority, cannot be justified on the plea of religion, because religion being an emanation from God, it cannot be made a cloak for any worldly policy on any account whatever without a heinous offence against the Divine Majesty. To such a martyrologist as Fox, whose labours have been devoted to make martyrs of men whose deeds have been of the most rebellious kind, the conduct of these Japanese Christians may appear meritorious, it does not seem to have been so, however, in the eye of God, and it was probably to mark his divine displeasure that the Christian religion no longer flourished in a country where its followers, forgetful of the promises of its Divine Founder, that all the powers of hell should not prevail against it, irreligiously attempted to defend it by force of arms. There is another subject connected with this rebellion worthy of observation, which Fox has very slyly passed over. He says, "The persecution continued many years, when the remnant of the innumerable Christians with which Japan abounded, to the number of 37,000 souls, retired to the town "and castle of Siniabara," &c. Mr. Butler on the contrary says, the Christians broke into rebellion and took the field with 40,000 men; that they took several strong places, but being at length forced, they died desperately fighting in the field, in 1638; and that a persecution reigned after this affair. But mark, reader, the preface of this rebellion. The Christians who were Catholics were accused to the emperor by the Dutch, who were Protestants, of being in a conspiracy with the Portuguese, who were also Catholics, which enraged the persecutors against the Catholic Japanese, and irritated the latter to make physical resistance to the sanguinary oppressions they experienced. Hence it appears

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that to Protestant reformers the Japanese Catholics were indebted for some of the cruelties inflicted upon them by their Pagan rulers, and it is a fact not less worthy of notice, but carefully suppressed by Fox, that the reason why the Protestant Dutch were the only Christians allowed to trade with Japan, was because they were the only people pretending to Christianity, that, for the sake of merchandize, would impiously trample on the image of their crucified Saviour.

In concluding our review of this account given by Fox of the persecutions in China and Japan, we will just observe that there have been many editions published of his Book of Martyrs, from the fólio size down to a duodecimo. In one of the former, now before us, edited by the Rev. Henry Southwell, LL. D. Rector of Asterby, in Lincolnshire, and late of Magdalen college, Cambridge; and author of The Universal Family Bible, we find the following character drawn of the Christian religion first introduced into Japan. "They," (the Japanese) writes this reverend editor, soon perceived, on the comparison, that their own religion was calculated to make them cruel, uncharitable, perfidious, unnatural, unsocial, unhuman; and that the Christian faith, on the contrary, would render them kind, benevolent, sincere, humane, social, tender. The contrast (he adds) was too striking for the "balance not to turn in favour of the Christian truth.-Happy then (he "elsewhere observes) must the people be to receive a faith which pointed out every virtue, divine and human, and taught the practice "of whatever could lead to happiness here and hereafter." Now this system of pure religion we have proved to be the Catholic faith, introduced by Catholic missionaries, and at a time when the evangelical reformers were reviling it, as blasphemous and idolatrous. What then are we to think of these edtiors of Fox's Book of Martyrs? We here find one representing the Catholic faith introduced into Japan to be a system of the purest benevolence, humanity, and happiness, while the "few plain Christians" assert that it is a system inseparable from cruelty and persecution, Can these men be worthy of credit after such contradictory statements?

"BOOK VIII.

"PERSECUTIONS OF THE PROTESTANTS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES NOT BEFORE DEscribed.'

This book is divided into ten sections, but as it would be tedious to enter into all the misrepresentations and falsehoods contained in them, and as it is time we should bring the first volume of our labours to a close, we shall content ourselves with noticing the most prominent perversions of historical facts, convinced that what we shall point out to the reader will be deemed satisfactory that the rest is unworthy of credit. The first head is "PERSECUTIONS IN ABYSSINIA," which are thus related by Fox. "About the end of the fifteenth century, some Portuguese missionaries made a voyage to Abyssinia, and began to propagate the Roman Catholic doctrines among the Abyssinians, who pro" fessed Christianity before the arrival of the missionaries.

The priests gained such an influence at court, that the emperor consented "to abolish the established rites of the Ethiopian church, and to admit "those of Rome; and, soon after, consented to receive a patriarch

"from the pope, and to acknowledge the supremacy of the latter. This "innovation, however, did not take place without great opposition.— "Several of the most powerful lords, and a majority of the people, who "professed the primitive Christianity established in Abyssinia, took up “arms, in their defence, against the emperor. Thus, by the artifices of "the court of Rome and its emissaries, the whole empire was thrown "into commotion, and a war commenced, which was carried on through "the reigns of many emperors, and which ceased not for above a century. All this time the Roman Catholics were strengthened by the power of the court, by means of which conjunction the primitive "Christians of Abyssinia were severely persecuted, and multitudes perished by the hands of their inhuman enemies."

"

We have just quoted an editor of this famous, or rather most infamous, Book of Martyrs, who says the Japanese were induced to embrace Christianity, by comparing the beauties of that system to the deformity of Paganism. We beg the reader will follow the example and compare the account given by the "few plain Christians" in their edition of this book of the introduction of Christianity into China and Japan, and the propagation of the Roman Catholic doctrines in Abyssinia. The time selected is much about the same; the introduction of Christianity into China being stated at the commencement of the sixteenth century by Italian missionaries; that of Japan about the middle of the same century, by Portuguese missionaries; and of the Roman Catholic doctrines about the end of the fifteenth century, by Portuguese missionaries. The Portuguese, as we have before stated, were all Catholics, and can it be supposed then that the doctrines which the Portuguese missionaries carried into Japan and the doctrines which other Portuguese missionaries carried into Abyssinia a few years previous were not one and the same. How then came the doctrines in Abyssinia to lead to such bad consequences, and the doctrines in Japan to be so fertile in good works? This is a strange contradiction which the short-sighted plain Christians" in their hurry to diffuse this work among their " fellow-believers," overlooked, and which they will find difficult to explain. We will, however, endeavour to set the reader right, and leave him then to form his own conclusions of Fox and the "plain Christians."

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It is admitted by Fox that the missionaries gained an ascendency over the Christianity of the Abyssinian's and that the emperor consented to abolish the established rites of the Ethiopian church and admit those of Rome; that this innovation, as he calls it, did not take place without great opposition, and that a majority of the people who professed the primitive Christianity established in Abyssinia TOOK UP ARMS IN THEIR DEFENCE AGAINST THE EMPEROR, Observe ye this, reader. Men taking up arms against their sovereign, because he thought fit to embrace the Catholic faith. What were these pretended primitive Christians Orangemen, like the bigotted and half-loyal Orangemen of Ireland, who swear allegiance to the king of England so long as he shall continue a Protestant, and no longer? But why did these Abyssinian primitive Orange Christians-bless their Christianity! why did they take up arms? Could they not reason and convince their adversaries, without having recourse to force? No, reader they were in error, as we shall presently prove; and error, you know

It is clear from Fox's ac

can never stand a fair contest with truth. count that the Catholic missionaries had not recourse to force; that the mock primitive Christians did take to arms, and rebelled against their sovereigns; and that the empire was thrown into confusion and- civil war by this rebellion. But then he attributes this state of things to the artifices of the court of Rome and its emissaries, who were strengthened, he says," by the power of the court, and by means of this junction "the primitive Christians were persecuted." What artifices the court of Rome could practice in such a distant empire we are at a loss to conjecture, nor can we perceive what advantage the pope could derive from them. But it is time the reader should see another side of the question, and we beg his earnest attention to it.

The Abyssinians or Ethiopians received the first light of Christianity, according to the testimony of Eusebius, from the eunuch of their queen, who was baptized by St. Philip the deacon, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter viii, verse 7. They were not grounded in their faith, nor wholly converted, however, till the fourth century, when St. Frumentius gained them over to the Catholic faith by his preachings and miracles. Subsequently to this, that is, in the fifth century, the Abyssinians engaged in the Eutychian heresy, which heresy was condemned by the council of Chalcedon as contrary to the doctrines of the apostles.Eutychianism acknowledged only one nature in Jesus Christ, whereas the Catholic doctrine declares there are two, the divine and the human. Thus then it turns out that the primitive Christianity of the Abyssinians was a heresy, afterwards called Demi-Eutychianism or Monothelism, and was justly condemned by pope Martin, according to Fox's account of the martyrdom of that holy bishop. (See our Review, p. 178.) Here is another contradiction on the part of John Fox. In his relation of the death of pope Martin in the seventh century, he praises the head of the Catholic church for condemning the Monothelites, who were, he said, heretics; and now, in the sixteenth century he is representing this same condemned heresy as pure primitive Christianity. The Abyssinians still adhere to this heresy, for which they took up arms in 1604, and slew their emperor Zadenghel in battle. But no persecution did they suffer, on the contrary, these Eutychians banished the missionaries and persecuted the converts to Catholicism till they eradicated that primitive faith. Still the reader must understand that the Abyssinians, though they deny more than one nature in Christ, yet they hold many of the doctrines of the Catholic church which Protestants deny.

The next head is "PERSECUTIONS IN TURKEY," which commences with an account of Mahomet, and ends with a victory of the Christians over the sultan Solyman, who besieged the city of Vienna in the year 1529. In the detail of this victory we have not a single name besides that of Solyman, any more than we have in his account of the siege of Vienna. Who the generals were not a word is said to throw the least light upon the circumstance, and the whole is a jumble of facts from which nothing accurate can be drawn. Were it not for his mentioning the name of Solyman, we should not have been able to distinguish which siege of Vienna Fox alluded to, as that city sustained two desperate attacks from the Turks, and by the bravery of the besieged saved Christendom from being overrun by the barbarian hordes of Mahomet