Bellona, or the Syrian goddess, as well as the votaries of Isis, used to slash and cut themselves of old, in order to please the goddess, by the sacrifice of their own blood; which mad piece of discipline we find frequently mentioned, and as often ridiculed, by the ancient writers.

But they have another exercise of the same kind, and in the same season of Lent, which, under the notion of Penance, is still a more absurd mockery of all religion. When on a certain day, appointed annually for this discipline, men of all conditions assemble themselves towards the evening, in one of the Churches of the city, where whips or lashes made of cords, are provided, and distributed to every person present; and after they are all served, and a short office of devotion performed, the candles being put out, upon the warning of a little bell, the whole company begin presently to strip, and try the force of these whips on their own backs, for the space of near an hour; during all which time, the church becomes, as it were, the proper image of hell, where nothing is heard but the noise of lashes and chains, mixed with the groans of these self-tormentors; till, satiated with their exercise, they are content to put on their clothes, and the candles being lighted again, upon the tinkling of a second bell, they all appear in their proper dress.

(3.) The doctrine of Compensation is valued beyond all manner of value in the divinity of the Sacred College. The Romanists having gained from their votaries vast accumulations of silver and gold, precious stones, and every other article of value, having also required of them an implicit submission to Creeds and Confessions, and having further subjected them to external mortifications, amounting, in some instances, to selfdenial and even self-torture, the question arises, by what means does the Church reconcile her adherents to the repulsive part of her discipline? How does she persuade men to endure actual anguish and pain? In more direct terms, how does she repay them? for there must be some compensation for their severe losses.

In attempting to think out a reply to these inquiries, we are obliged to confess, that although it seems not very difficult to explain the principle on which men yield to moderate degrees of voluntary distress, yet philosophy has found its line too short to fathom the depth of the fact, that immense numbers of persons among the Roman Catholics have deserted all the endearments of life, suffered almost all things, and done

almost all things, for the sake of what they considered to be the truth; and this, with the prospect of no recompense, in the least adequate, in a human sense, to afford a competent reward: We refer to the expatriation, poverty, hunger, thirst, nakedness, and exposure to death in its most appalling forms, endured, for example, by Jesuit Missionaries, and to the severities practised by some individuals attached to certain modifications of Monachism. We understand the motive and the recompense of a patient, who endures, for instance, the excision of a mortified member; the prize is life, the alternative death. We sympathize with a parent, who, to save a child from ruin, consigns himself to indigence and the world's oblivion.

But where is any approach to proportion, between the martyr-life of a Josephus a doloribus, in Cloisters more gloomy than those of La Trappe, and the advantage proposed as the final result? Or, if this measure of suffering, (as the difficulty appears to class among questions of degrees,) be capable of analysis, what enabled Sister Rachel and Sister Felicite to sustain the anguish of an actual crucifixion, nailed as they were through the hands and feet to two crosses, for upwards of three hours, during which they affirmed, "that they felt the most exquisite delight," affecting sometimes to slumber, as if in a beatific trance, and sometimes addressing the spectators in the fondling and babyish language of the Nursery.

Let those who can furnish the natural history of the fact, then proceed to explain the counterpart system of torture and excruciation among the Hindoos. I will abandon this department of the inquiry with one remark:-that if Catholicity be, as is contended, the only true religion, because it can inspire its disciples with a calm disdain of agony and death, Hindooism has equal, if not superior, claims upon human credence; a circumstance, which must precipitate a papal apologist upon very thorny perplexities. In the mean time, the doctrine of Compensation is perfectly intelligible when interpreted in connexion with the minor sacrifices offered by the Papal populace at the shrines of their divinities. A sensualist will fast, if you will allow him a Carnival; he will abstain from meat on Fridays, if you will take no notice of a voluptuous life., He will wear a vest of sackcloth, and wallow in ashes during Passion Week, on condition of re-assuming the purple and fine linen at Easter. He will even attend daily Mass, if he may regularly

retire from the wafer to the pursuits of avarice, vanity, and ambition. He will give the Church his public homage on Sunday, provided the church, in exchange, grant to his pleasures the rest of the week. In other terms, bad men may be persuaded to observe the outward services of religion, so long as religion does not interfere with the routine of private life, or, what is with them exactly the same thing, the pleasures and gains of the world.

Catholicity, and, indeed, nominal Protestantism, in all its ramifications, is satisfied with an adherence to forms, and an indolent assent to creeds. If this kind of allegiance be rendered, beneficiary dues of the altar not left in arrear, and respect shown to ecclesiastical officers, all is right. Priests and people sleep on, and take their fatal rest. But the Gospel considers all the public ministrations of religion, only as a means subservient to a practical effect in daily conduct. If such effect be not discernible, all the externals of the system, are regarded as a cause barren of consequences; or, if productive at all, fertile only in delusion and guilt. The sacrifices demanded by the Gospel "are in no way allied," says Dr. Chalmers, "with the penances, and the self-inflictions of a monastic ritual, but are the essentials of spiritual discipline in all ages, and must be undergone by every man, who is transformed by the Holy Ghost, from one of the children of this world, to one of the children of light. The utter renunciation of self, the surrender of all vanity, the patient endurance of evils and wrongs, the crucifixion of natural and worldly desires, the absorption of all our interests and passions in the enjoyment of God, and the subordination of all we do, and of all we feel, to his glory; these form the leading virtues of our pilgrimage, and in the very proportion of their rarity, and their painfulness, are they the more effectual tests of our regeneration."

(4.) But, leaving what may be considered a very inferior point of examination, let us advance to the grand machinery of Absolution. No one needs long to hesitate in ascertaining the super-eminent importance of this movement, in the compensatory apparatus of the Roman Catholic communion. Christianity has probably received her most cruel wound from this instrument of her enemy's power. The weapon thus formed against her, has indeed prospered; and will go on to prosper, so long as the evangelical prophecy is not more fully accomplished. Consciousness

of guilt produces in human bosoms various degrees of uneasiness and alarm; and considerable sacrifices will always be willingly made, to obtain composure. No fact in the history of mankind is more obvious than this. It was accordingly seen, that a conscience disordered by a sense of sin, demanded a cure; and Popery administered an opiate. This is a medicament which suspends irritation and pain, but leaves the distemper as it was found; or, rather, it increases its malignity, and in such cases, superinduces new forms of disease. But what patient is there, who is not eager to soothe the paroxysms of pain, and to obtain even a short respite from its bitterness, by whatever means he finds to be successful? He takes the tranquillizing draught, and has the prospect of a few hours' repose. This is precisely analogous to the vulgar effect of remission of sins, among the Papal populace. Their transgressions are not forgiven, but the consciousness of their existence, and the punishment due on their account, is from time to time suspended. The opiate is administered, and they sleep. But who does not discern the incalculable value of having his medicament at command? The Church of Rome may amply repay the fines she exacts in the shape of fees, fastings, ceremonial observances, and restrictions, when she gives back in return, to guilty minds, even an indistinct and unsatisfactory persuasion that their iniquities are forgotten. Now, in the indiscriminate and gregarious administration of Absolution, the sacerdotal boon is bestowed, not when vice is forsaken, for this cannot be known, but barely when it is confessed. The confession may be insincere, yet the remission is plenary. It is, therefore, most grateful to the confessed, and therefore, also, the progression of the powers of Absolution is numbered among the richest sources of Pontifical influence.

Such is the machinery of compensation, as put into action by the religion of human nature, under the name of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. How despotic is its form of government, and yet how dependent, for its very existence, on the abjectness and degradation of its subjects! For the secret truth-part of the underwork of the whole system is, that while the hierarchy of Rome professes to be entirely independent of human opinion, it is, all the while, the veriest slave to those whom it affects to despise, and to rule with irresponsible right. Covertly it flatters men's vanity, confirms their universal self-righteousness, and as before suggested, upholds for their sake, a magnificent scheme of Anti

nomian delusion. Does any Christian Philosopher feel the possibility of doubting that Antichristianity has deluged the world with its doctrines, by a skilful adaptation of them to the prejudices of a sinful race; by encouraging, on the one hand, what it professes to disallow on the other; and by reaching the climax of its guilt, when it succeeds, ultimately, in teaching its adherents the dreadful art of being satisfied with themselves, and with their deceivers? So that the superstition of the Romanists, when exposed in the nakedness of its character, is discovered to be nothing more than one division of a wicked world, holding in captivity the rest, and by means of fetters forged by the selfsame slaves whom they bind. It is the few who have gained the ascendancy domineering over the many ;-the many, as in the instance of absolution, being more than willing to transfer to the few their own guilt and responsibility; and the few having the terrific power of assuring the majority of their ability to sustain the pressure, and to effect also the removal of the burden. It is thus that, by the ministrations of Antichrist, bad men gain what they want,-a regular licence to live as they please; and a provision against the alarms of death, by periodical acquittals at the bar of the assumed vicegerents of Heaven. Whatever may be said of this statement, as being an unfair account of the matter, and a detail, not of the doctrine of absolution, but of its abuses; I answer again, that, in all human concerns, we must argue on them, not as they exist in the refinements of theory, but as settled down into practice; when a recurrence to original principles only suffices to prove, that these tenets lie buried in obsolete statutes, forgotten and inefficient, derided and despised. Besides, we will venture to assert, almost without the fear of contradiction from Papists themselves, that if Absolution were pronounced exclusively on sincere penitents, (supposing such sincerity were ascertainable,) the confessionals would be deserted both by Priests and people; the popularity of the invention would be changed for undisguised hatred; the charm of the mighty sorcery would be dissolved, and the foundations of the eternal city shaken.