to be judged by Rome. In no other part of the world has the Pope had anything but a divided empire. Where his spiritual power has been confessed, his temporal supremacy has been resisted or obstructed. But in the favoured region that lies in the narrow belt between the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and divides the kingdom of Italy, there has been no work left for the Ultramontanist to do. The temporal and spiritual powers have been vested in the same person, and used for the same ends. They have been so thoroughly identified as to have no separate responsibility. Church and State have been so completely merged into one, as to be, if not absolutely one and the same thing, but the two arms of the same body, and animated in their comprehensive grasp by the single absolute will. The union of Church and State is the doctrine of Romanism -not such a union as the Anglican asserts and desires, but the complete subordination of the temporal to the spiritual power. The Pope, as Vicar of Christ, is king of kings. His authority is absolute on all questions. This doctrine has had its practical illustration in the Roman States. Is the result favourable either to Church or State? Has it strengthened both or weakened both? Rome answers these questions. No good son of the Church can except to the answer; and the true answer is a crushing one to Romanism.

In respect to religion, Rome is essentially a pagan city. Her churches, numerous almost as the days of the year, are not only built largely of the materials of the old temples and fanes of paganism, but witness a worship that can hardly be said to differ from the ceremonies of the days of the Caesars, except in the use of Christian names for heathen services. The gods of the calendar of mythology have come down to dwell with men, and receive commemoration, in the guise of saints and martyrs. The square of St. Peter is overlooked by the statues of the demigods. With rare exceptions, the worship of the churches has nothing in common with Christianity. The vestments of the prelates and priests are a reproduction of pagan apparel. The Pope has horrowed not only his ecclesiastical attire from the Roman Pontifex Maximus, but his very name also. The clouds of incense, which perpetually arise from swinging censers, would not be strange to the nostrils of some old patrician of the empire, should he come forth from his grave to renew his devotions in the basilica of modern Rome. The fire which never went out on the altars of the vestal has its parallel in the constantly burning lamps that are everywhere throwing their sickly glare before the images of Our Lady. It is not even the God of the Old Testament and the New, who, as a matter of fact, is adored in the splendid temples of ecclesiastical Rome. It is not He whom Christians believe to be blessed for ever, incarnate in the flesh of man. God has passed out from the practical homage of Rome. The Son of God even has ceased to be an object of veneration, and the Eternal Father is found in the reli

The Saviour of men is painted or sculptured as a little child in the arms of his mother; and the characteristic paintings of the Vatican-its symbolical representations place the Father and the Son in a subservient position. The religious paintings of Rome are subordinate, like its worship, to one purpose-to the glorification of the Virgin Mary, the great goddess of the Church, and after her, not of the Father, Son, nor Spirit, but of a multitude of men and women, made into objects of adoration, and, whatever may be alleged to the contrary, clothed, as she is pre-eminently clothed, with the incommunicable attributes of the Deity. These are indeed strong assertions, but they are not stronger than the facts will sustain.

In one of the halls of the Vatican, recently and elaborately frescoed since the decretal of the Immaculate Conception, there is a grand historical painting, designed to represent that doctrine, and the present attitude of the Roman Church. It tells, better than any words can tell, the meaning of that apparently inoffensive declaration of the present Pope. "Why," said a priest, "should a Protestant object to the immaculate conception of Mary, when most Protestants are ready to affirm that their own children are born without original sin?" "But there is more than that in this famous decretal," was the reply. "The Roman Church has not been labouring for centuries to bring forth so comparatively harmless a proposition." "It is true," he said; "and but few priests even understand its real meaning. The centuries will gradually develop it. Its meaning is already painted upon the walls of the Vatican in a grand commemorative picture." Nor can any careful observer doubt what is the silent but expressive language of that celebrated fresco. On either hand the artist has delineated the customary forms of the Father and the Son, while between them, yet above them, in all the wealth and beauty of Italian colouring, the Virgin Mary is pictured, standing on the worlds, encircled with the glory of angels, and the symbols of infinite authority. It is the first time that religions art, the great tell-tale of religious belief, has given to the "Mother of God" supremacy over the Father and the Son. And that the picture might not be without its key, another fresco, in the same hall, represents the present Pope as reaching forth to her, in her heavenly height, the crown of celestial power. The decree of the Immaculate Conception has enthroned the Virgin above the Child. It is a proclamation of the essential sinlessness and the essential divinity of the human mother of our blessed Lord. It is the establishment of idolatry in the Roman Church; for such, and nothing else, is the prevalent Mariolatry of Rome. It is a step in advance of the mediæval faith-nay, it is the heritage of that faith; for this doctrine was germinant in the middle ages, and has been centuries in reaching its long-expected and heralded advent.

Nor has the Virgin less practical veneration than the

Father or the Son; rather more. She it is to whom the youth of Rome are taught to pay divine honours, whose smile they are to seek, at whose frown they are to tremble, and whose favour they are to propitiate by making costliest gifts and building noblest churches. A single fact, like a waif upon a mighty current, reveals the practical effect of this Mariolatry on the popular mind. A foreign artist in Rome overheard his servant blaspheming fearfully the name of Christ. Shocked at the bold impiety, he asked him, "Are you not afraid of Christ?" แ No," said he; "I am not afraid of him." "Of whom, then, are you afraid ?" "I am afraid of the Holy Mary."

No one who has spent even a week in Rome, and witnessed the high religious ceremonies of Christmas or Easter, and has mingled in the crowds of apparent worshippers and studied the symbols and images of religious devotion, but knows well that the worship of the Virgin Mary is the worship of that city. And the traveller through Catholic Europe everywhere perceives the wide difference between the objects of worship in Italy and in Austria and Germany and even France. In the latter nations he will see images of the Saviour, carved in stone or wood, placed in every quarter and scattered in all directions. At cross-roads, in the centre of a field, in a door-yard, in a cemetery or garden, nailed to a house or shop or barn, there is the invariable universal crucifix. In many places the whole scene of the crucifixion is represented with a sad and mournful accuracy; and the agonized features of the Saviour, nailed to the cross between the two malefactors, look down upon his mother, the disciples, and the soldiers. Still it is the Christ, in his manly perfection, in the last act of his suffering life, who is so painfully and often disgustingly presented to the sense as the object of Christian veneratien and homage. But the shrines of Italy are not like those of the rest of Catholic Europe. Even the crucifix-an ever-saddening and terrible thing to contemplate - has found its substitute in the Madonna and Child. The Redeemer plays a subordinate part in all their religious symbolism. From the time that one enters Italy from the north-west, over the summits of the Cornici road-making its entire circuit, till he leaves it at its north-east corner, passing through the watery gates of Venice into the realms of the Hapsburgs-the only images that attract his attention are the painted or chiselled figures of the Holy Mary. She has her shrines on the tops of the hills, in every grotto by the way-side, in groves of oranges and olives, in the courtyards of palaces, and by the stone huts of the peasantry. She is hideously presented on the plastered fronts of churches, and splendidly painted upon the walls or behind the altars of cathedrals. St. Paul, in wandering through Italy now-over his old route from Puteoli to Rome, or along the Appian Way, or by the church built to consecrate the place of his martyrdom—would doubtless perceive, by the multitude of shrines, statues, and pictures in every likely and in every unlikely place, that

the entire spiritual empire of Rome was wholly given up to idolatry. And the apostle to whom our Lord committed his mother in the last hour of his atoning life, would now look with wonder and fear upon what his boasted successors have done with the sacred trust that was committed to his hands; nor would he see any more reason why Mary of Nazareth should be raised to a glory above that of the Father or the Son than any other disciple who should do his will, for even such disciples were his mother and his brethren.

But while the Roman system in the Pontifical States pays supreme homage to the Virgin, there is also a universal homage to the saints. St. Peter's toe, in the church of his name, has been replaced many times, having been worn off by the kisses of the faithful; and whenever the devotee approaches the image-which is, doubtless, an exhumed statue of an old pagan deity-he proceeds and follows the kiss with prayer and prostration. St. Agnes, St. Catherine, St. Sebastian, St. Francis, divide with Christ the homage of the people; while winking Madonnas (as in the church of St. Maria del Popolo), and speaking Madonnas (as in the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, in the Forum), and weeping Madonnas (as in the church of Vicovaro) receive such incense of adoration from throngs of worshippers as is never given to the Son, except it may be to his bambino-a gaudily-dressed doll in the church of St. Maria sopra Minerva. One who knows Romanism only in its devotional or polemical literature would hardly recognize its practical and actual operation and life in the seat and city of its power. Among the innumerable churches of Rome, there is one of the Ara Cœli, built, as is said, upon the site of the old temple of Jupiter Feretrius. It is celebrated among all the other churches of the city for the possession of a miraculous bambino, representing the infant Redeemer. In a chapel or sacristy of that dark and gloomy building, hard by the chief altar, a small party may find, for a consideration, the object of special Catholic adoration. It is safely stored in a close wooden box, over which two delectable figures, representing the Holy Virgin and St. Joseph, bend in rapt devotion. A hollowcheeked monk (in this unlike most of his tribe), with ornamented and gold-bespangled gloves, lifts down the coffer, and with great reverence sets it on the altar. Then, amidst the pale light of candles, with many prostrations and muttered prayers, it is opened, and from wrappings of satin and lace, a little wooden doll, gorgeously dressed and blazing with rich jewels, is taken out. There is not a spot on its breast, neck, or body, that is not sparkling with the costly offerings of the faithful. Sometimes it is borne round the church under a canopy, in solemn procession, with lighted candles held by attendant priests and Dominicans; sometimes its toe is reverently kissed by the pious monks, or offered to the osculation of some high-born stranger; or it is taken, with all the pomp due to its miraculous power, through the streets, to the bedside of the sick

and dying, that its presence or touch may restore to life and health. It is impossible to conceive a more instructive exhibition; for it tears the veil off from the decent semblance which Romanism takes care to wear when it is on its trial before enlightened public opinion, and gives the lie to a hundred specious assertions of its advocates and its dupes. It lets light in upon the real worship of the people. It is the best possible introduction to Roman rites. And if any one were disposed to be even charitable to Roman doctrine or literature; if his heart were drawn out in a quasi respect by her manuals, her histories, her meditative and devotional books, or by her splendid arts, her paintings, her frescoes, her architecture, her equipage; if he were likely to sympathize with her gorgeous ceremonies, the pomp of her processions, the glare of her candles, the smoke of her incense, the noise of her bells, the music of her choirs, the braying of her silver trumpets, and inclined to take a charitable view of her corruptions; then it were wise for him to examine carefully the actual working of the Roman system-to discover the common tricks of a degraded priesthood-to investigate the winking images, the miracle-working images, the speaking images, and look into all that machinery by which the Church satisfies the humbler classes of her adherents, and also holds them down in ignorance and degradation.

In connection with this Mariolatry, there is another part of practical religion which is very obvious to the eye of the stranger in Rome, and to which he cannot well be made insensible by the delicious strains of Roman music, the magnificent anthems and misereres of the Papal choir, or the sensuous splendour of Roman ceremonies. On many of the churches of the city, and in more of them, there is painted, or carved, or chiselled, this inscription: "Indulgentia plenaria quotidiana pro vivis et defunctis." What this indulgence is may as well be learned from the common ideas of the people as from the rubrics of the Church. That it is granted upon confession no one doubts; that it remits the consequences, the temporal penalties, of sin, is the universal belief; that it is sought by the criminal, rather than by the sinful, is open to every observer; that it degrades the conscience, is only a palpable inference; that it cheats the understanding, deadens the sensibilities, and leads men to think well of their moral state when they ought to be filled with self-contempt, is a clear matter of fact; that it absolves the soul from the conviction of wrong, makes crime easy, and gives a premium to vice, would be logical as they are historical conclusions. A brigand who has been troubling the society of Southern Italy with his robberies and murders, and seeking to promote a general feeling of insecurity in the premises of the late King of Naples, in the interest of the Romish Church, returns from his predatory and cruel excursions to Rome, and there confesses his

| misdoings and obtains indulgence-the remission of the penalty of his sins. Thus cleansed from the past, he is well fitted to resume his work with the certainty of a like acquittal. The moral force of Italian brigandage is in the confessional and the system of indulgences. What robber need fear the face of man, when he is a true and devout son of the Church? What spoiler of life, or virtue, or society need dread the future, when the Church in which his faith rests teaches him to sin with impunity, and rewards his perpetual offences with her perpetual indulgence? Nor does he obtain indulgence for the past alone. The spectres of old transgressions are laid by priestly exorcism, but at the same time the principle of future misdeeds is implanted. By visiting in Advent the church of Santa Croce, "eleven thousand years of indulgence and remission of all one's sins" are obtained; by a single visit to other churches, as Saints Cosmas and Damian, "one thousand years, and on the day of the Station ten thousand years;" by kissing the foot of the idol of St. Agostino, "one hundred days' indulgence." And a devout Roman in his daily walk may obtain every year of his life indulgence for over four hundred thousand years. Over some of the altars is inscribed, "Each mass said at this altar frees a soul from purgatory."

This is not the place to argue that the whole system of indulgences is a gross fiction and cheat. We are not so anxious in this article to disprove Romanism as to find out what it is; we are willing to let itself be its defence or its refutation. But on the supposition that such indulgences are not a delusion, it is an excuseless fault of the Roman Catholic world, and especially of the inhabitants of Rome and the contadini of the vicinity, if any one man, woman, or child ever goes into purgatory, or if any one is now left there of all that have hitherto died. If one mass at a certain altar will deliver a soul from the pains of hell, what priest with the spirit of Christ in him should give himself rest day or night till the souls of the faithful should be delivered from limbo? On that altar certainly the fire of devotion should never pale for an instant. And when, by a decree of Pope John XXII., seven hundred years of indulgence is granted to whoever should give a single kiss to the true measure of the Virgin's foot, taken from her real shoe; and by decree of Pope Clement VIII. this decree was extended to any similar measures taken from the original one, adding also that it is to be applicable to the souls in purgatory; and when the possession of a copy of that measure is possible to any one, so that he can sit in his easy chair and kiss himself from purgatory into heaven; it seems incredible that there should be left in purgatory any souls at all-in fact, that purgatory itself is not actually and for ever nonsuited by failure of defendants to appear, and exploded by disuse.

(To be continued.)

AW

HY must the rain come to-day-just today?" is often the impatient query of townsfolk who have, perhaps for weeks, rejoiced in prospect of a country excursion, and are scarcely beyond the streets when it begins to pour for the whole day. The charming, romantic fete champêtre is changed into a water party, without any arrangements having been made for boats or

steamer !

"Why should the rain have come to-day?" is asked yet oftener, even with tears, by dwellers in the country. The hay had dried so beautifully, and this very day four horses and a couple of oxen were to have been at work to carry it safe into the stack-yard;-and now the ricks are afloat in the meadow, and the loss beyond calculation!

Of such unfortunate days, we may say that their name is legion, even when there is no rain in the case; and day by day the good God is found fault with by the poor, miserable, cavilling children of men. Why ?-why ?-why?

Yet He calmly follows "the counsel of his own will," and that is well for us. "Good is the Lord"—and, therefore, good are all his works and ways. When we cannot see this, we must consider that the darkness is in our own eyes, the ignorance in our own foolish hearts. Nor shall we always have to speak of dark dispensations and mysterious guidance. Dark providences will become light, will prove all goodness and truth, when we behold them in the true sunshine.

Yet to be silent, quietly to wait and watch, is often no easy task-for man naturally walks by sight. He can with difficulty believe that what is so grievous now shall be a source of joy hereafter. Our heavenly Ruler and Guide, as I have said, holds on his own way, and we shall thank him for it when once the sun has risen on our path. Till then, he leaves us to weep, to lament, to ask, “Why?—ah me !—why ?" He does not help us-he only says, "Be still, and wait; you shall learn the meaning in the end." His hour is not yet come; it is but morning now with us, at evening-time there shall be light......

I am not now speaking of ordinary rainy weather, such as washes away the hay-ricks and the pleasant country excursions; but of those floods of sin, which at times suddenly seem to overwhelm all our earthly hopes and joys; and of the fiery furnace in which, as the prophet announced of old, the "sons of Levi" are to be purified as gold and silver. Many of my readers will understand this, and many will also know by experience that often small providences, little clouds and showers and crosses, end in showing more of the Lord's wondrous power, and bringing the inmost heart to more quiet peace in believing, than is effected by the mighty strokes of his hand.

As Solomon admonishes us, let us "take the little foxes, which spoil the vines." It were easy to make a long sermon on the small trials and conflicts of daily life, and to prove from these the need of keeping the heart with all diligence." But I must not rob my reader's own pastor of this fine text; I shall only illustrate it by an example, showing how a real storm may be a good thing-and, in fact, God's sunshine. For to strengthen our weak, faithless hearts, our gracious loving Father is sometimes pleased to let us feel how the storms which he sends are in themselves showers of blessing. Then we blush and are ashamed before him, and exclaim, "Now I shall put a chain on each rebellious thought, and trust thee in all things, and for ever!" A wise resolve; which, perhaps, may last till the next trial comes.

Two years ago, when the writer of these pages lived in a mountain parish, he had engaged to deliver a discourse in L― on the festival of Gustavus Adolphus. The place was six leagues' journey from the preacher's village, and his having undertaken the service became for him a grievous burden, for in his own home all sorts of troubles and distresses had taken up quarters. Yet, as it seemed plain that the Lord gave the command to go to L, he must set forth. The road led through wild desolate mountains, dark extensive forests, deep ravines and glens. He must go alone, and ask his way from place to place, for he had never been in this direction before.

In the morning the weather was beautiful, and this was quite what he expected. For so we think-if we know that we have undertaken anything against our inclination, and from a pure sense of duty and obedience, we feel as if all ought to prosper, and the Lord to be, as it were, our servant. In short, the writer thought it a matter of course that the weather should be fine. But nevertheless, towards noon, dark clouds rose over the sky, and soon such a deluge of rain came down as bas seldom been seen since the days of Noah! It was almost dark at mid-day, the mountain-path became a water-course, and the poor pedestrian pastor could with difficulty raise one foot after another out of the mire. Not a thread of his garments was dry, the end of his journey was still three leagues distant, it appeared quite impossible to proceed, and yet there he was expected to preach. The reader will not wonder that his temper was much tried, nor that, not being a perfect saint, he exclaimed, in peevish impatience, "Why should this rain have come to-day?" In fact, his spirit was in open rebellion.

His feet were as weary as his heart, and gladly perceiving a little cottage near the road, deep in the valley, he walked towards it.

In a small, poorly furnished, yet tidy room, a pretty.

young woman was seated, with a lovely infant at her breast. She was very pale, and the expression of her eyes told of some deep sorrow. She received me coldly, yet drew a wooden stool for me near the warm stove, in which potatoes were cooking for the dinner of her husband, a miner.

In order to get into conversation with her, I said, "My good woman, what a darling baby you have!" Now it is quite according to rule that we should praise the children, when we wish to reach a mother's heart and open her lips. In this case, however, the result was quite contrary to what I expected.

"Oh, sir!" she exclaimed, rising impetuously; “a darling baby! Do you not see that my child is blind! He is born blind!" She uttered these words in almost a scream of despairing anguish, and sank back as if exhausted, while a flood of tears streamed from her eyes over the face of the infant, who appeared no ways disturbed.

The distress of the woman went to my heart. I could not say a word, only silently sympathize and weep with her. For no one should try to speak comfort to another, till he really knows and understands what is needed-and we can only comfort "with the comfort wherewith we have ourselves been comforted." So I sat long in silence, sighing, and praying for direction, till the miner's wife herself showed me the right track. "Yes, sir, the worst of it all is, that I must myself have been the cause. For in this way, I suppose, the sins of the parents are visited upon the children. The children are innocent. Now I have almost gone distracted, within the last four months, night and day trying to find how I have sinned so grievously against God as to be made such an unhappy mother!" here her voice was choked by tears and sobs.

When she was a little more composed, I begged her to hear me for a moment. I spoke to her thus,-" More than eighteen hundred years ago, there lived a very wise man, a great Prophet and Teacher, who understood all things thoroughly. One day, he and his followers were walking together along the highroad, when they met a blind beggar, one whom they knew had been blind from his birth. (I saw that the woman was now eagerly listening.) One of the disciples asked the Teacher, 'Master, who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?"" Here I interrupted myself and said, "But you probably know the story already?" "No, no," she replied; "tell me, what did the prophet answer?"

"He answered: Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.' Do you understand this, my friend?" Evidently relieved, yet with an anxious, uncertain look, she gazed into my eyes. 'No, sir; I do not understand; but if you do, tell me about it!"

Then I drew my New Testament from my pocket, and sat down with the woman at her table, as Philip went up into the Ethiopian traveller's chariot. If that

traveller was a grateful listener, while Philip taught him the way of salvation, my miner's wife was no less so. And I venture to hope, that as the blind man of whom we spoke, by means of his very blindness, found Jesus, and in him everlasting light, so this woman, by means of her blind child, was also led to him who has said: “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

In all simplicity, I sought to make plain to her the way to that unknown Saviour who was drawing her by the cords of affliction. Her tears flowed abundantly as before; and yet they were not as formerly. For tears of anguish were changed into tears of joy, tears of despair into those of blessed hope.

Our "Bible hour" became a long one. For a thirsting, mourning, self-despairing human heart, when brought for the first time within reach of the fountain of living waters, is not so soon satisfied with drawing from it as those who "say they are rich and in need of nothing." The rain continued to pour-the mud was getting deeper than ever-I felt a severe cold coming on, and a three leagues' journey was still before me--but my body and spirit were glad in the living God. For now a dear wandering child had found the Father's house-the weary dove had found a nest, "even thine altars, 0 Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God!" My own weary, grumbling heart was light and joyful again, through the honour and happiness that had been granted to me. And how had I been brought to this cottage, and to converse with this woman? Ah! I could blush and feel ready to sink with shame! "Thanks, thanks, my God, for that merciful rain! Forgive thy foolish servant for his murmuring and lamentation!"

As I took farewell, I confessed to the woman that I had been most discontented at the storm, and had impatiently asked, Why should the rain have come to-day?

"Oh, dear sir," she joyfully said; "I know well why!" "Yes," I replied; "now I know also. Shall not we both diligently learn the lesson, to take all things thankfully from our Lord's hand, even when we cannot understand his dealings with us? He sends storms without, but gives calm within. He sends natural blindness, and darkness of all sorts, in order to bring to the soul everlasting light."

A warm grasp, a parting word, "God bless you!" and I was out in the rain once more. But how totally changed were all my feelings!

From that time I have never again asked, Why should it rain to-day? And though there are a thousand other "whys," often accompanied by many tears, to which I have received no answer, yet I am of good cheer, and I desire that my readers may be of good cheer also. He who truly asks, with the trembling jailer, "What must I do to be saved?" shall in the end find "an answer of peace" to all other questions.

H. L. L