city alone; and in 1819, the number of nuns had increased to 1463. No doubt there is a farther increase by this time; and they will continue to increase until all the houses be as full as they were before the French invasion. It is needless to dilate on such a subject, or to point out the horrible immoralities that must be the consequence of such a state of things. Luxury, idleness, and celibacy, on a large scale, are enough to qualify the world for another deluge; and because of these things, I have no doubt, the wrath of God will, by and by, come upon Rome to the uttermost.

With regard to the statement relating to the garrison of Carcassone, it is given by Jones in his History of the Waldenses, and it does not appear to me incredible. Many greater works have been effected in our own day than digging an excavation of nine miles, arching it over, and then using it as a subterraneous passage.

Upon the whole, I am perfectly aware of the truth and propriety of my correspondent's remarks. Papists cannot meet an opponent with fair argument; and they seldom attempt it. It is their constant practice to draw away the mind from facts and principles, and to fix it on some trifle that is really or apparently incredible or absurd; but which is of no importance in relation to the general question in dispute. When they cannot find real absurdities and things incredible, they will feign them, and endeavour to make their own inventions appear the arguments and statements of their opponents. Their whole system is built on falsehood, of which there cannot be a better evidence than the manner in which they constantly try to defend it.

They will no doubt attempt to find a flaw in Mr. Lyman's statement too. They will say, it is impossible in the nature of things, supposing all the nuns to be as bad as possible, that 1303 of them could produce 1013 children annually. And this objection will startle some persons; and they will disbelieve the whole story; but let it be observed, the author does not confine his statement to priests and nuns; nor does he speak of them at all as particularly implicated. He regards the convents with much respect and tenderness; and he indeed speaks of the system in such a manner as makes me believe that he belongs to the church of Rome. He does not so much as hint a suspicion that the ecclesiastics of either sex have any hand in filling the hospital wheel with three children every night. It is the general profligacy of manners in Rome that he brings to view; and the reader is left to make his own remarks, and draw his own conclusion, with regard to the influence which clerical celibacy may have had in producing that profligacy.

Persons acquainted with the history of Rome, and with human nature, will find no difficulty in drawing conclusions from clerical celibacy to general profligacy of manners; and such persons will regard with real concern, and serious apprehension, the introduction of the monastic system among ourselves, at least among our neighbours in Ireland. Several attempts have been made of late to make celibacy popular in that kingdom, by pompous representations of the ridiculous solemnity of foolish young girls taking the veil, as if this were a most meritorious act, and worthy of the admiration of angels and men. The following has appeared in several newspapers, in the present month.

(From the Connaught Journal.)

PRESENTATION CONVENT, GALWAY.

"Miss Joyce, daughter of Walter Joyce, Esq., of Mervieu, was received to-day (Monday week) amongst the pious and exemplary sisterhood of the Presentation Convent. Scarcely have we ever witnessed a scene more sublimely imposing. The young and promising daughter of one of our most respectable and esteemed citizens presenting herself at the altar of her God,-in the abandonment of every earthly consideration,—in the sacrifice of every thing that could bespeak permanency to social life and to social happiness,-in the dedication of her exalted talents-of her young and innocent loveliness of the world's promise and the world's hopes,-must, indeed, be capable of awakening in the breasts of all a generous and a dignified association, whilst it affords a high and important colouring to the completion of her future existence, and her ultimate destiny.

"At half-past nine, the O gloriosa virginum' was sung from the higher choir, in the masterly accompaniment of select musical performers. The procession then began to move from the vestry, through the lower choir, to the chapel, in the following order:

The Thuriferere,

The Acolytes,

The Master of the Ceremonies, Rev. Mr. Daly.

The Sub-Deacon, Rev. Mr. GILL.

Deacon, Rev. Mr. O'DONNell.

The High Priest, Rev. Mr. FINN.

The Celebrant, Very Rev. Warden FFRENCH, and his Trainbearer.

"The very Rev. Warden Ffrench having been conducted to his faldastorium, under a rich canopy, the high priest and his officiating ministers retired to their places at the gospel side of the altar.

"And now all was breathless expectation: the young postulent appeared in the attendance of the reverend mother and her assistant, robed in all the gaudy extravagance of fashionable splendour, and beaming in the glows of youthful modesty, which taught us to believe, that had she remained in the world she forsook, she would have moved the attraction of every heart, 'the leading star of every eye.'

"The very reverend celebrant was then conducted to the platform of the altar, and the postulant and her attendants having genuflected, the ceremony of reception began with the preparatory prayers and responsories. When the novice was seated, and the celebrant reconducted to the faldastorium, high mass commenced with peculiar dignity, and with a strict precision in all the various ceremonies, which always render the Catholic service sublime. After the gospel, the Rev. Mr. Daly delivered an excellent sermon, addressed peculiarly to the novice, and prefaced by a text admirably pertinent to the subject he handled:Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear; thou shalt leave thy people, and thy father's house, for the king hath greatly desired thy beauty; and he is the Lord thy God.'-Psal. xlv.

After mass the novice retired, whilst the clerical choir chanted in full tone, the psalm, 'In exitu Israel de Egypto." At the conclusion of the psalm she appeared disrobed of her worldly habiliments, and

vested in the simplicity of penance and retirement. In the different answers to the questions put to her by the celebrant, she was clear and decisive, like one whose determination of embracing a life of religion, and of chastity, was that of long and conclusive reflection. The ceremony on the whole created a deep and general interest.

"The chapel and lower choir were crowded with the first of rank and distinction in our town and its vicinity. We recognised among them the respectable families of his grace the archbishop of Tuam, Collector Reilly, our worthy mayor, Colonel Carey, &c."

On the above statement some very judicious remarks have been made in some of the newspapers; but none of the writers seem to have been aware of the shocking enormity that the church of Rome has the impudence to practise in open day. Let them call this what they will, it is as really a human sacrifice as the burning of widows in Hindoostan with the ashes of their husbands; and I can easily imagine, that in the case of the young girl above described, it may be a greater sacrifice than that of a wretched widow who offers herself to the flames, to terminate her sorrows, as she believes, in a few minutes, rather than to drag out a life of misery. Here a silly young creature is represented as devoting herself to a life of celibacy and perpetual seclusion from the world, which must be a life of delusion, or of misery, or both; because it is contrary to the appointment of God, who requires no man or woman to relinquish the advantages of social and domestic intercourse, or to become thus secluded from the world; but who rather commands all to occupy the sphere which in his providence he assigns them in the world, for his glory, and the good of their fellow-creatures.

There is something inexpressibly shocking and revolting in the style of the above narrative. The writer allows his fancy to luxuriate on the personal beauty of the victim brought to the altar to be sacrificed-to what, I shall not say or surmise. From the abominable profanation of the word of God, by the accommodation of the "text admirably pertinent to the subject," we cannot say what the priests may not devise and execute. Men who can so prostitute the word of God, as to apply what he says of spiritual and inward holiness to carnal beauty, may, by and by, alter the same passage by putting the word "priest" in the place of "king," and then use the Bible itself as a pander of wickedness.

It is a fact not generally known, that there is a convent of nuns in the heart of London. They belong to an order that left England on the suppression of the monasteries at the reformation, and settled in the Netherlands. The seminary, if such it could be called, was kept up chiefly by recruits from England, for more than two centuries; when, on the disasters following the French revolution, the sisterhood were driven to seek refuge in England, from which their predecessors had been driven. They were living in London in great comfort in 1814, as appears by the Orthodox Journal for that year, when a controversy arose about their dress, which it seems was offensive to London Protestants; and they were ordered by authority to lay it aside, and dress like other people. This, so far as appears, was merely an order by their spiritual superiors, who were afraid of the odium that might be occasioned by the monastic habits in London; but great pains were taken to make the order appear an act of the ministry, who, I suppose, knew no more of the matter than I did at the time.

VOL. II.-63

CHAPTER CLXXXII.

NOTICE OF DR. MILNER'S WORK,

THE END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY." CHARACTER OF THE WORK. MISREPRESENTATION OF THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S VIEWS. MILTON AND LOCKE ON TOLERATION. IDLE CLAIM OF POPERY TO ANTIQUITY. POPERY NOT THE ANCIENT RELIGION OF IRELAND.

SATURDAY, January 5th, 1822 WHEN I first saw the title of Dr. Milner's great work," The End of Religious Controversy," I understood him to mean the "final end" or design of the thing; which is, or should be, the discovery of truth, and the exposure of error. But I had not read many sentences till I discovered that he meant the actual conclusion, or termination, of all controversy on religious subjects. Yes: this foreign bishop, and vicar apostolic, has actually the vanity and presumption to tell the world, that this work of his settles all controversies, and puts an end to all disputes about religion. He tells us that Christianity is the religion of Rome, and submission to the pope; and this must end all disputes; for he has said it, and that is enough. Had there been no disputes before, this work would have been properly called the beginning of religious controversy; for it suggests innumerable subjects of debate; but as things are, and have been, I think it ought not to have been called either the "beginning," or the "end," but the "middle;" for there was religious controversy before, and there has been since, and there shall be yet more; and this same work of Dr. Milner, is calculated to produce more controversy than any other publication by the Papists of the present day. The Rev. Mr. Grier has added a large volume to "the end," or termination; and THE PROTESTANT is about to add to it something more; so that the vicar apostolic will find that he has not done up his subject so completely as he imagined.

The work is preceded by an address to the lord bishop of St. David's, and followed by an appendix relative to the writings of the same prelate; in both which the writer displays a spirit of rancorous hostility, too strong for even the cunning of Jesuitism to conceal. Had he imbibed a sufficient portion of the spirit of the great father of the order, he would have studied to conciliate a dignified individual, whose vote will tell in the house of lords whenever the "Catholic question" comes to be agitated, and whose profound learning and well known attachment to the constitution, as established in 1688, give him an influence with other members of that noble house. But Dr. Milner so far forgets his duty as a member of the holy fraternity, which is to promote the interest of the order and of the pope, by all possible means, that he allows himself to indulge in personalities, calculated to irritate the persons of whom he asks the favour of emancipation, which shows the irritability of his own temper, and also how deeply he feels the injury which my lord of St. David's has done to the cause of popery by his writings. The introductory address and the appendix are both in the same style, only there is more venom in the latter than in the former. In both there is a petulance, and impudent disregard of historical truth, which cannot find a parallel in the writings of any other author with which I am acquainted, except in those of his own protegee, W. Euse

man.

bius Andrews, the Catholic Vindicator, concerning whom bishop Cameron swears, he never approved of any thing that came from that See Report of Trial, p. 47. Dr. Milner's style, like that of Mr. Andrews, is petulant, but never rises even to the dignity of manly sarcasm. It is more polite, indeed, more grammatical; and his vocables are better chosen and arranged; but, upon the whole, he discovers nothing of a superior, or well cultivated mind. Considering the rank and learning of the person whom he addresses, his style partakes as much of insolence as petulance; and I do not know any thing to which it can be so justly compared, as to the rudeness of ill-bred boys and girls, in the streets, who delight in throwing dirt on the clothes of such passengers as show by their dress that they are superior to themselves.

This "End of Religious Controversy," bears one of the most prominent marks of the beast in its very front; that is, downright lying and imposition. Of the bishop of St. David's the author writes as follows:"He comes forward in his episcopal mitre, bearing in his hand a new Protestant catechism, to be learned by Protestants of every description, which teaches them to hate and persecute their elder brethren, the authors of their Christianity and civilization." Page vii. In this short sentence there are several things which require animadversion; but the first and most prominent is the impudent misrepresentation, that this catechism teaches Protestants to hate and persecute their brethren. I have read it over again and again, and can assure the reader that it teaches no such thing; nor does it contain a syllable that by fair construction can be made to imply that it is right to hate and persecute any man of any sect whatever. With as much truth Dr. Milner might have said, that this catechism teaches treason, and that it recommends the confiscation of the revenues of the church, of which its author is a distinguished ornament and zealous defender. My present business, however, is not to defend the doctrine of the catechism, but merely to expose the falsehood of the vicar apostolic, and the unblushing effrontery that could make such an assertion, when he must have known that any child could detect it.

It is but fair, however, to state the ground on which Dr. Milner makes such an assertion; and we have it in the following words: "In fact, this Christian bishop begins and ends his Protestant catechism with a quotation from a Puritan regicide, declaring, that 'popery is not to be tolerated, either in public or in private, and that it must be thought how to remove it, and hinder the growth thereof;' adding, 'If they say, that by removing their idols, we violate their consciences, we have no warrant to regard conscience, which is not grounded on scripture.' This is a quotation from the great poet Milton, which his lordship gives, in the introduction, and at the conclusion of his catechism. It is because he has quoted these words, that Dr. Milner makes the monstrous assertion above noticed, that the bishop's catechism teaches Protestants to hate and persecute their brethren. The question is not, whether Milton perfectly understood the subject of liberty of conscience. Perhaps he did not; as few men of his day understood it so well as it is generally understood now; but taking his words in the strongest and most exceptionable sense that they will bear, they imply nothing like that which Dr. Milner affects to find in them. They cannot without gross violence be made to imply, that it is right to hate and persecute Papists. The