be Him who "received gifts for men." But it seems, according to the Roman Catholics, that quite a different person received and dispenses them. How much novelty there is in the Roman Catholic religion! It is almost all of it comparatively new doctrine. Ours, the Protestant, is the old religion,-after all that is said to the contrary.

But the Roman Catholic is so positive in regard to the coronation 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 became 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 honour 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 ser

vice; but this Roman Catholic guide to heaven directs us to consecrate ourselves entirely to the service of the Virgin Mary.

years

Accordingly the docile Roman Catholic does consecrate himself to Mary, as in the following act of devotion to her, which you may read in the same little book: “0 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 I looked up tender my to thee as my mother, my advocate, and my patroness. Thou wert pleased to consider me from that time as one of thy children. I will henceforth serve, honour, and love thee. Accept my protestation of fidelity,; look favourably 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 Roman Catholic says, that 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 or hope in death than that. That was not the reason why David said (Psalm xxiii. 4), "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 Roman 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 practice 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, all-powerful 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 Roman 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 empanneled. I have PROVED the Roman 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 true church, is convicted, out of her own mouth, of idolatry. She has this millstone about her 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 Roman Catholic Idolatry.

Why, reader, did you know that the Roman Catholics not only pray to the Virgin Mary, but sing to her? I was not aware 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 metre. Here is the first. You will see that, in point of idolatry, they are fully as bad as 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 our 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 (xvii. 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 fill'd my breast,
Or sin my conscience pain'd,

Through thee I sought for peace and rest,
Through thee I peace obtain'd.

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."

Perhaps the reader is aware that the Romanists 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 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 nineteenth, the sinner is directed to say, "O wheat of the elect, have mercy on us!"*

*With regard to this expression, they will probably tell us, that Christ is meant by "the Wheat of the elect:" referring to John xii, 24. But their language is often so strange, that no wonder it is sometimes mis-understood. But what strange objects Romanists will choose to worship, we may learn from a book entitled, "Bona Mors, or, the Art of Dying Happily in the Congregation of Jesus Christ Crucified, and of his Condoling Mother." The Sixth Edition. in the year 1726. In the frontispiece we have represented to us, in truly Romish fashion, Christ Crucified, and His Condoling Mother, with a sword piercing her breast, (in reference to Luke ii. 35-materializing that expression,-after the custom of the Church of Rome, which must always have "a corporal and sensible object" for its devotions). Under this picture we have these words:

"JESUS Protect the

MARY Succour the Associats,”

Printed

It is only the abstract of a much larger work; and, in the "Short Account of this Abstract" which is prefixed to it, this rule is given to be observed by all the Associates of the Confraternity: "Likewise they shall say every day, not only for themselves, but also for those at that time in their Agonies, or shall be next under that dreadful trial: Lord! into thy Hands I commend my spirit, and recommend all agonizing souls. Mary! Mother of Grace, Mother of Mercy, defend us from the Enemy, and receive us at the Hour of Death. Amen." So that the Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary are placed just upon a level in their devotions; and the same worship is addressed to both, in the same breath!

Further on in this little book, we have "Devout Addresses to the Five Wounds of our Saviour." I quote some of the expressions :