were afterward settled by the payment of 40,000 marks; and after the interdict was taken off, John renewed with great solemnity, and by a new charter, sealed with gold, his professions of homage to the see of Rome. Civil supremacy was not however enough, and hence it was announced that the "man of sin" should assume that which was ecclesiastical, and even divine prerogatives. The apostle says, "He as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God," 2 Thess. ii. 4. No prediction can be more completely fulfilled than this in the instance of the Roman pontiff, for his supremacy is a fundamental article of his church, on which depend its asserted infallibility and exclusive authority. Here is the very key-stone of the arch of its power, which, removed, would leave the whole fabric of the earthly power it assumes to fall into ruin. In himself, therefore, the pope appears as the fountain of civil and ecclesiastical power. He claims an homage which even rivals that of Jehovah. Some of the titles he assumes are truly awful. Among them are, "Most holy Lord," "God upon earth," "Our Lord God the pope!" We quote these from Romish authors. Of this enormous wickedness, the Apostle John had an intimation in the visions of the Apocalypse. "I stood," he says, "upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven." Rev. xiii. 1, 5-7. "And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns and upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth," Rev. xvii. 3, 5. INDULGENCE. JOHN TETZEL, a Dominican inquisitor, employed to sell the indulgences of Pope Leo X. travelled throughout various parts of Europe, persuading the people that the moment any person had paid the money for his indulgence, he might be certain of his salvation; for all his crimes, however enormous, would be forgiven. At Leipsic, after he had "scraped together a great deal of money from all ranks of people," a nobleman who suspected the imposture, put this question to him-"Can you grant absolution for a sin which a man shall intend to commit in future?"-"Yes," replied the frontless commissioner, "but on condition that the proper sum of money be paid down." The nobleman instantly produced the sum demanded and in return received a diploma sealed and signed by Tetzel, absolving him from the unexplained crime which he secretly intended to commit. Not long after when Tetzel was about to leave Leipsic, the nobleman made inquiry respecting the road he would probably travel, waited for him in ambush at a convenient place, attacked and robbed him; then beat him soundly with a stick, sent him back again to Leipsic with his chest empty and, at parting, said "This is the fault I intended to commit, and for which I have your absolution!" This story is related by Seckendorf, and may serve to show the almost incredible lengths to which the popish agents proceeded in their detestable traffic. POPISH FRAUD. THE following exhibition of fraud is true-every word of it. The transaction occurred in Massachusets, not fifty miles from Boston, and, if we mistake not, the priest is now officiating within the state. The first letter is by a methodist minister, who furnished us the facts. The other letters were written by a Roman catholic: "I have been thinking whether your friends do not sometimes doubt the truth of such statements as have been made already, relative to popish movements in this country. I know they would not doubt were we to write from Spain or Austria. But the same things are done here that are done in Spain and Austria, as far as they can be done in the midst of protestant light. "In this letter I shall notice but one thing. The priests cheat their people. One way, of the many resorted to in doing this, is sending for them from other parts, and making large promises of temporal gain; for the more they have in their parish, the more souls they have to 'pardon.' ROMANISM IN HAVANA. 89 "A poor young man, a papist, was sent for from a distance by the priest then officiating in this place. Large promises were made. He came was disappointed and distressed. The priest went to another place to perform his mummery, sent again for him, engaged him to build a vestry-cheated him out of the moneytold the people he had paid him-persuaded his landlord to put him in prison for his board, which for want of the money for the vestry he could not pay. He was put in prison-his family were distressed, and himself prevented from assisting them and, as appears by original documents which I have sent you, the whole amount was kept by the priest, and money borrowed by him with the pretence of paying the poor disappointed young man a second time! He is now bailed out by strangers, but the priest adds insult to injury by assailing his character. Still the poor deluded young man remains a papist. "This is fleecing with a vengeance! And yet such facts can be gathered from every quarter of our country; and in many places papists are flying to protestants for advice and help, as you will see by what I have sent was the case in this instance. Well, indeed, might you ask, 'Can't a man be got who will act as missionary in the city of Boston?' Ah, sir, many, very many would indeed hear him, and receive him, and leap for joy! Do our people think the one half has been told them? No words, no language could, or ever will describe popery better than the words of the Holy Ghost written by Paul-MAN OF SIN.'" ROMANISM IN HAVANA. THE week of Easter was one of great solemnity; all business was entirely suspended from Thursday at 10 to Saturday at 9, during which time not a carriage of any description, nor a horse, was allowed to be in the street. On Thursday evening the churches were all brilliantly illuminated, and a wax figure of our Savior crowned with thorns, taken down from the cross, was exhibited. A crowd of people was around it, pressing forward to kiss the feet. Most of the inhabitants were in the streets, going from one church to another, to see the display. On Friday, the dead body was carried through the streets on a platform, in a procession of priests -probably to be taken to the tomb. On Saturday, at 9, there was a great firing of cannon and ringing of bells, and people resumed their usual business. On Sunday morning, at 6, a procession left the cathedral, with the risen body, and proceeded toward the church of San Juan de Dios-from which another procession came out with an image of the Virgin Mary, with a cheerful, smiling face. They carried it on the run to the image of Jesus, whom she welcomed with great joy, and invited home to her own church. She then turned about, and both images were taken to the church of San Juan de Dios, there to remain till the next anniversary. During this time troops were drawn up in the cathedral square: they commenced a discharge of musketry, the bells all rang for about half an hour, and thus terminated this festival of the church. FRENCH PREACHING.- 66 Why do you, Roman catholics, read your prayers in Latin ?" said a friend of mine to a French lady. "Do you understand it?"-" No, sir," said she; "it is very ridiculous that we do not, but we can not help it."—" But why persevere in a custom which you think ridiculous ?”- "Ah!" said she, and a significant shrug spoke her meaning." Do you think the Bible enjoins all those ceremonies ?"-" The Bible, sir? I don't know, I never read the Bible."-" Never read the Bible, and yet profess to be a Christian!"—"Ah! you know we are catholics."-" But is a catholic anything different from a Christian ?”— "Oh! I don't know, we leave all to our priests."-" The priests, then, fill a very responsible situation?"—"Ah! but this is our way, and catholics don't trouble themselves much about these things." This woman is a specimen of thousands and tens of thousands in France and America. POPISH FACTS.-A widow, in New York, had her ragged and barefooted children clothed and shod, and placed in a sabbathschool by benevolent ladies. She told, the priest of it at confession. The ghostly father instructed his blinded devotee, that she sinned by receiving gifts from protestants; and he, in the due exercise of his arrogant sovereignty, commanded her to return the clothes, and take away her children. She did so; but the ladies urgently requested her, from compassion to the children, to retain the clothes. The mother, however, while she wept when stripp her fatherless children of their comfortable apparel, felt herself under the direful necessity of yielding instant obedience to the compassionless priest, that she might avoid, of course, a more severe penance than had been already imposed! A Roman catholic, in a conversation with a minister of the gospel, in a village on the North river, while urging the claims of the church of Rome to the generous support of Americans, remarked: "In less than ten years from this time we shall ask no favors of you." Americans! ye sons of '76! will you think of this? Are those aliens able, by the strength of foreign conspiracy and internal intrigue, thus to predict? And shall we suffer ourselves to be deceived? PRAYER FOR ENGLAND.-Dr. Wiseman, one of the most distinguished Romanists of the age, has formally called on his "Church Universal" to make England the subject of her special prayers, not that her government may be perpetuated or her commerce prospered, but that she may return to "Holy Mother Church." On the authority of the Catholic Herald, we state the success of his appeal, inasmuch as three archbishops and fourteen bishops have already set their dioceses to work, in praying that the good days of bloody Queen Mary may return with all the illumination which the renewed fires at Smithfield could create.-Presbyterian. POPISH LEGEND.-As a knight of Malta, who was ambassador from France to the pope, was one day walking with the Venetian ambassador in the square before the church of Jesu, at Rome, where it seems there is always air, even in the hottest day of summer, he said to him: "What an odd thing it is that there should be always something of a breeze here! Can your excellency account for it?"-"Perfectly well," replied the Venetian: "The Devil and the Wind were one day walking together in the streets of Rome, when, coming to the jesuits' college in this place, the Devil said to the Wind, 'Be so good as to stay here a minute or two, I have a word to say to the fathers within.' The Devil never returned to his companion, who has been ever since waiting for him at the door." |