were exposed to their investigation. Under that galling yoke of body and soul, the Europeans during several centuries had hopelessly groaned, until at length they became insensible to their own degradation.

The ecclesiastical changes which have flowed from the exertions of the Reformers, comprise a large circle of advantage to the reformed nations. Devotion in its external forms has been inconceivably purified. The mummery of the Romish ritual and the pageantry which absorbed every spiritual feeling have disappeared, that the more simple worship of the heart might be introduced. From the commencement of that period, when crucifixes, statues, pictures, images, cloisters, abbeys, convents and idolatrous processions were countermanded and destroyed, until this day; notwithstanding all opposition, a constant progress to that perfection of "fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ," which shall so exquisitely adorn the latter-day glory, has been demonstrated.

The influence of popery and of its head has obviously declined. Although in numbers, probably the present Pope can form a catalogue of nominal adherents as large as his Predecessor could have framed during the fifteenth century; yet the irresistible power over the people, which the former pretended Vicegerents of God indubitably possessed, has almost entirely disappeared. Neither Governors nor the people regard, obey, or enforce a Papal bull. The injunctions are despised, and the menaces are ridiculed. The vision of Bunyan's dream is literally fulfilled. The Pope sits at the entrance of his gloomy and cruel den, grinning at the Pilgrims, as they pass. He can only rail, for he is now too impotent to seize and destroy.

Nothing could be more utterly at variance with common sense as well as with religion, than the positions, that every person who does not believe as the Pope prescribes, shall be anathema, and then burnt, the earthly

symbol of the transfer to the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; and that, with heretics thus condemned, all faith, every promise, and all covenants may be infringed. Those doctrines are still believed as infallible by all who submit to the decisions of the council of Trent; and while the Dragon's Beast possessed his great power and authority, the fiend of persecution exercised his sway without control. Modern papists acknowledge, but they cannot practice their creed. Tortures and death for the sake of a good conscience in this age have become so abhorrent, that although eventually they may be resuscitated for a short period according to the prediction, Revelation 11: 7-11; nevertheless, the present paralyzed condition of the Pontifical arrogant usurpations justifies unfeigned rapture; and urges with overwhelming force, ceaseless and devout thanksgiving to Jehovah, for the inestimable immunities which we have derived instrumentally from the Fathers of the reformed church.

All the other privileges which have accrued to us in consequence of the contest in which our ancestors in the faith and hope of the Gospel engaged and conquered, are rendered incalculably more valuable by the avenues which it opened for the establishment and increase of literature. Of what utility to mankind comparatively would have been all the literary treasures brought by the Greeks into the Roman boundaries, after the capture of Constantinople, had not the types so rapidly and so extensively diffused their partial illumination? And in an ecclesiastical reference, even the discovery of printing would have been of inferior importance to the church and the world without the rejection of the Papal supremacy. Revealed truth alone could remove the darkness of the moral world, dissipate the mists of idolatry, and the fogs of superstition; and they wisely judged, that the grand

object was to consecrate typography to the multiplication of the Bible in the vernacular languages. The more enlightened and artful dignified supporters of the antichristian system were perfectly convinced, that the occlusion of the sacred oracles was indispensable to the permanency of their tremendous jurisdiction. Every species of torment and death was denounced against the owner and reader of the word of God; so that the volume of inspiration was altogether unknown; and the publication of it in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, would have aided the holy cause of pure religion in a very small degree. God himself doubtless imbued the original translators of the scriptures with the hallowed desire to impart the blessing of revelation to all the nations in their own tongues; which has been in every age the most effectual mode by which Antichrist has been enfeebled.

The vast increase of learning has been of indescribable use to the church in other respects. Wherever the Protestants have been enabled to grasp the writings which had been incarcerated in the monasteries, they dislodged them from their dark and dreary abodes; and thus imbodied scripture, reason and antiquity against the claims of Rome.

This concise retrospect enforces one important admonition, improve your advantages. Remember the toil, the privations, the anxieties, the opposition, the dangers, and the deaths with which the Reformers whom we have commemorated were constantly enveloped. Demonstrate your exalted sense of their philanthropy to man, and devotedness to God, by emulating their virtues. Thereby will you exhibit that gratitude to God which you should ever nourish, when you contemplate the value of that truth which "hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."