and services" of both. And now, after they have been dead so long, to tell the world that they are not at rest, and that their repose must be prayed for! If Protestants had dared to suggest such a thing, we should never have heard the last of it.

But it seems not only a slander on these men, but also a reflection on Christ. How imperfectly, according to the Romanists, He must have done his work !—that even those esteemed his most devoted servants must toss and burn, nobody knows how long, after death, before the efficacy of his atonement will bring them to heaven! Where is the fulfilment of his promise, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest. Ye shall find rest to your souls?" According to the prelates, &c., these bishops have not found it yet.

I would dare ask another question. How can the priests and prelates tell with such accuracy, how long a soul remains in purgatory before it is released? How do they know when to stop praying? I will not insinuate that they pray as long as the money holds out, and no longer; for in the case of the bishops, I suppose they freely give their prayers. I could not help thinking, if they did go first to purgatory, yet they may not be there now. A year is a long time to be in purgatory. Hours pass slowly while one is burning. Oh, is this a part of Christianity? Can it be? What an unsatisfactory religion, which will not allow its most eminent examples, its most virtuous votaries, to have repose even in the grave! Credat qui vult, non ego.*

45. Canonizing Saints.

I was a good deal struck the other day, in reading in a Baltimore paper the following notice: "On Monday, the 17th of March, St. Patrick's day, a solemn HIGH MASS will be sung in St. Patrick's church, Fell's Point,

* Believe it who will; not I.

and the panegyric of the Saint will be delivered." It suggested some thoughts which I wish to communicate. Why should the 17th of March be called St. Patrick's day? How is it his day more than yours or mine? What property had he in it more than others? He died on that day, it is true. But was he the only one who died on that day? Many thousands must have died on the same day. Does a man's dying on a particular day make it his? Ah, but he was a saint. How is that ascertained? Who saw his heart? I hope he was a good man, and a renewed person. But I think we ought to be cautious how we so positively pronounce our fellowcreatures saints. Especially should Roman Catholics; since even Peter himself, though, as they affirm, infallible, did not express himself so confidently; for he says in his first epistle (v. 12), of Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose.' But what if he was a saint?every real Christian is a saint. If any one doubts this, let him consult the New Testament. I trust there were many saints on earth at that time; and, I doubt not, other saints died on that day as well as Patrick. I object altogether to the day being called his. I have no idea that the 365th portion of every year belongs peculiarly to St. Patrick. I have no notion of this parcelling out the year among the saints, and calling one day St. Patrick's, another St. Cecilia's, and so on. At this rate we shall have the whole year appropriated to dead saints.

Ah, but you forget that Patrick was canonized. The church made him a saint, and appropriated that day to him. But I have not much opinion of these canonized saints the saints of human manufacture. I like the sanctified ones better. Our Protestant saints are "God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus." But granting the 17th of March to be St. Patrick's day, why is it kept? What have we to do with it, who live so long after? Patrick died in 493, and here in the nineteenth century they are keeping his day! I think it is time to have done grieving for the death of St. Patrick, now that he

has been dead more than 1300 years, and especially when he died at the good old age of one hundred and twenty. Really, I think it is time that even the Irish Roman Catholics had wiped up their tears for him. Tears!why, they do not keep the day in lamentation for him, but in honor and praise of him. High mass is to be sung, as it appears by the advertisement. Now singing expresses praise and his panegyric is to be pronounced. It is wonderful what a disposition there is among the Romanists to multiply the objects of their religious honor. Oh that they were but satisfied to praise the Lord that made heaven and earth! But no-they must have creatures to do homage unto-angels; and saints of their own making; and above all the blessed Virgin, "our heavenly mother," as some of them call her. It would really seem as if they had rather pay respect to any other being than to God! They cannot be satisfied with the mediation of Jesus. They must have creatures to mediate and intercede for them. They are always doing things, and keeping days, in honor of the saints. How much they talk about tutelar saints and guardian angels. It would appear as if they had rather be under the care of any other being than that of God.

Now the idea of still eulogising, panegyrizing, and praising, here in the United States, one St. Patrick, who died in Ireland in 493,-how absurd! How is piety to be promoted by it? I should like to know!

By the way, what is high mass in distinction from low mass? They differ in several respects. Among the peculiarities of high mass, this, I believe, is one, that it is more expensive than low mass. If you want high mass said for a poor suffering soul in purgatory, you have to pay more than you do if you are content with low mass. And so it should be, for the high mass is worth more. Low mass scarcely makes an impression on a soul in purgatory. It is high mass that does the business effectually and expeditiously.

As for us Protestants, we have nothing to do with these masses. We do not find anything said about

them in the Bible. The Romanist will pardon me, I hope, for alluding to the Bible. I am aware that it is no good authority with him,-except now and then a verse (entirely misunderstood), such as that about the rock, which they say was Peter, on whom the church was built, according to them! Only think now, a man that denied the founder of Christianity three times, with profane oaths, himself the foundation of the whole church! Nothing else for it to rest upon but Peter! But the beauty of it is, that this foundation should have had a long series of fundamental successors, down to the present Pope! I always supposed that, when a foundation is laid, there is an end of it, and that all after. belongs to the superstructure. But this is a digression.

It strikes me that, in giving this notice, the priests should have used an easier word than panegyric. I wonder how many of our Irish brethren know what it means. But that "ignorance is the mother of devotion," you know, is one of their maxims. What multitudes of them said, on the 17th of March, "Blessed St. Patrick." Probably more than said, "Hallowed be thy name." And every day how much more respect is paid among them to the mother than to the Son! It is as clear as demonstration can make any thing, that the Roman Catholic religion is idolatrous. Men may say, that it is a very uncharitable remark. But if any one will dare to it is an untrue remark, I am ready to meet him. Let us inquire, first, what is truth. Then we will come to the question, what is charity. And we shall find, that charity is something which "rejoices in the truth."

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46. General Lafayette not at Rest.

A few days since, I observed the following notice, taken from the Charleston Roman Catholic Miscellany: 'There will be an office and high mass in the Cathedral on Monday, 30th inst. (June), for the repose of the soul of General Lafayette." Also the following, taken from the Roman Catholic Herald: "A solemn

high mass will be sung on Tuesday next, the 29th inst. (July), at 10 o'clock, at the church of the Holy Trinity, corner of Sixth and Spruce, for the repose of the soul of the late Gen. Lafayette." The General died, it will be remembered, on the 20th of May. I did not know that he had been heard from since, any more than the rest of the dead. But the Charleston and Philadelphia editors seem to have had accounts of him up to as late a date as the 29th of July. Forty days after his death, according to the one account, and sixty-nine days according to the other, his soul was not at rest; and they give notice, that measures are about to be taken to procure its repose. I don't know where they got it: they do not say through what channel the intelligence came. They are very positive, however, in regard to the fact. I have often been surprised at the confidence with which Romanists make assertions, implying a knowledge of the condition of souls beyond the grave. One would suppose they had a faculty, peculiar to themselves, of seeing into the invisible world. With what positiveness they speak of this and the other as saints in glory, and even pray to them as such. I have often thought that many of the prayers of Romanists might be lost, from the circumstance of the persons to whom they are are addressed not being in heaven.

The

We Protestants do not lose any prayer in that way. We do not pray to any being who we are not certain is in heaven. We speak with positiveness of the future condition of characters and classes of men-the righteous and the wicked-believers and unbelievers. Bible does that. But we do not, we dare not speak of the condition of individuals with the same confidence; and specially we dare not say of this or that person who has died, that his soul is not at rest. We think it better to be silent concerning the spirit that has returned to God who gave it; and to wait for the great day to disclose the decision of the Eternal Mind on its case; and that especially if the person seemed to die in impenitence. We would not usurp the prerogative of