nation of the blessed Virgin, that we find him using the following thanksgiving, "O Jesus, in union with angels and saints, I bless thee for the glory with which thou hast environed thy holy mother, and I give thee thanks from the bottom of my heart, for having given her to me, for my queen, my protectress and my mother." Here ends the thanksgiving to Jesus. They soon become weary of addressing him, and fondly return to the mother. "O queen of angels and men, grant thy powerful intercession to those who are united to honor thee in the confraternity of the holy rosary," (I don't know what that means; it is a mystery that I must leave unexplained,)" and to all thy other servants." Then follows something to which I solicit particular attention. I suspect the author and approvers of the book would be glad to obliterate the sentence I am going to quote, if they could. But it is too late. The words are these: "I consecrate myself entirely to thy service." Here the person wishing to be guided to heaven is directed, under the authority of the archbishop, to consecrate himself entirely to the service of the Virgin Mary, who is acknowledged on all hands to be a creature. Mark, it is entirely. This excludes God altogether from any share in the person's services. He is to be entirely consecrated to the service of the Virgin. Will any one, who has any regard for his character as an intelligent being, say that this is not idolatry? There cannot be a plainer case of idolatry made out in any part of the world, or from any portion of history. St. Paul beseeches us to present our bodies a living sacrifice to God, which, he says, is our reasonable service; but this Catholic guide to heaven

directs us to consecrate ourselves entirely to the ser vice of the Virgin Mary.

Accordingly, the docile Catholic does consecrate nimself to Mary, as in the following act of devotion to her, which you may read in the same little book: "O blessed Virgin, I come to offer thee my most humble homage, and to implore the aid of thy prayers and protection. Thou art all-powerful with the Almighty. Thou knowest that from my tender years I looked up to thee as my mother, my advocate, and patroness. Thou wert pleased to consider me from that time as one of thy children. I will henceforth serve, honor and love thee. Accept my protestation of fidelity; look favorably on the confidence I have in thee; obtain for me, of thy dear Son, a lively faith; a firm hope; a tender, generous, and constant love, that I may experience the power of thy protection at my death." Here you perceive the Catholic says he will do what "the guide" directs him to do. He will serve her; and so doing, he hopes to experience the power of her protection at his death. Poor soul! I pity him, if he has no better company in death than that. That was not the reason David said, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." His reason was, "for Thou (the Lord, his shepherd) art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." How can Mary be with every dying Catholic who trusts in her? I should like to know. Do they go so far as to say she is omnipresent? Have they formally deified her, as in fact they have?

The devotee in this prayer uses the following language to the virgin: "Thou art all-powerful with the

Almighty." Shall I call this an error or a falsehood? It is certain that there is no truth in it. She, a poor sinful creature, like the rest of us, saved by grace, allpowerful with the Almighty in intercession! Christ is that; but no other being is; and to say that any other is, is not only falsehood, but blasphemy.

I have other specimens of Catholic idolatry, which I mean to give; but those, I have exhibited are sufficient to convict that church of idolatry before any court that ever sat, or any jury that was ever impanneled. I have PROVED the Catholic church and religion to be idolatrous. I have not merely asserted it, it has been demonstrated, and the proof has been taken from her own authorized publication. To have said she was idolatrous, would have been uncharitable. To have proved it, is not. A man is responsible for the drift of his assertions, but not for the scope of his arguments.

Idolatrous! Yes, she who pretends to be the only church, is convicted, out of her own mouth, of idolatry. She has this millstone about ner neck. I wonder she has swum with it so long. It must sink her presently. I think I see her going down already, although I know many suppose she is rising in the world.

23. More Specimens of Catholic Idolatry.

Why, reader, did you know that the Catholics not only pray to the Virgin Mary, but sing to her? I was

Popery.

not awa e of it until I got hold of the book I have been reviewing. But it is a fact that they do. At the end of the book I find the two following hymns addressed to her. They are both in common metie. Here is the first. You will see that, in point of idolatry, they are fully up to the prayers to her.

"O holy mother of our God,
To thee for help we fly;

Despise not this our humble prayer,
But all our wants supply.

O glorious virgin, ever blest,

Defend us from our foes;

From threatening dangers set us free,
And terminate cur woes."

Here is the idolatry of looking to a creature for the supply of all wants, and of flying to a creature for help and for defence. There is a curse pronounced in Jeremiah, 17: 5, on the man "that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm." If the person who devoutly uses this hymn does not make "flesh his arm,” I should like to know who does.

The other hymn runs thus:

"Hail, Mary, queen and virgin pure,
With every grace replete;

Hail, kind protectress of the poor,
Pity our needy state.

O thou who fill'st the highest place,
Next heaven's imperial throne;
Obtain for us each saving grace,

And make our wants thy own.

How oft, when trouble filled my breast,
Or sin my conscience pained,

Through thee I sought for peace and rest,
Through thee I peace obtained.

Then hence, in all my pains and cares,
I'll seek for help in thee;

E'er trusting, through thy powerful prayers,
To gain eternity."

But it seems the blessed Virgin is not the only creature they sing to. I find in the same book a hymn to St. Joseph, of which the first verse is,

"Holy Patron, thee saluting,

Here we meet with hearts sincere;
Blest St. Joseph, all uniting,

Call on thee to hear our prayer."

66

Perhaps the reader is aware that the Catholics are not satisfied with praying merely to animated beings, they sometimes supplicate things which have no life. Indeed they seem disposed to worship almost every thing, except it be Him whom alone they should worship. To give but one example, I find in "the Litany of the blessed Sacrament," as they call it, among many other similar supplications, this one, O wheat of the elect, have mercy on us." What a prayer this, to be sanctioned by an archbishop, and sent forth from one of the most enlightened cities of America, and that in the nineteenth century too! It is really too bad. We talk of the progress of things. But here is retrocession with a witness. In the first century the rule was, according to the practice of the publican, to pray "God be merciful to me a sinner;" but now in the