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nature from a polluted imagination-professors of a virtue, of which, from the death of the righteous Abel down to the birth of the fervent Peter, no solitary example is recorded in holy writ-excluded from that posthumous life in remote descendants, in the devout anticipations of which the patriarchs were enabled to walk meekly, but exultingly, with their God, the sacerdotal caste yet flourishes in every Christian land, the imperishable and gloomy monument both of that farsighted genius, which thus devised the means of Papal despotism, and of that short-sighted wisdom, which proposed to itself that despotism as a legitimate and a laudable

end."

"There are in

members of families, known to be the children of friars. The friars no longer exist; but there are still priests, who notoriously have their 'amas.' Nothing has given a greater blow to religion than this. It is true, that religious parents have hardly dared to let their daughters confess." (Meyrick, p. 11.)

"The bitter hatred against the monks and friars is quite astonishing. None of them were murdered here, because, when they were turned out, the governor gave them warning, and allowed them ten days to escape in disguises before the people knew it. An Englishwoman saved one by dressing him in her son's clothes, but I have no doubt, that now, if one made his appearance in the monastic dress, he would be torn in pieces. Not even the courtesy of Spaniards can make them behave decently to a priest. The priesthood in general seem to be thoroughly despised."(Meyrick, pp. 26, 27.)

When any one dies in the hospital, he is buried, as they say, like a dog. The body is put into a cart, and taken off to the Campo Sancto, where it is thrown into a pit, without a word of prayer. The layman asked the padre, Where are the souls of those who die in your hospital? "Those who are not in hell are all in purgatory." One of them turned round-" These people tell us, that all are equal before God, rich and poor; but it

is false. If a rich man dies, his friends will have one or two hundred masses said for him, and he goes to heaven; while these poor creatures are tormented in purgatory." I tried to turn it off by saying, “As you feel so much for them, of course you have masses said for them;" he laughed at the suggestion, and said, “You do not believe all these things, though you believe a great deal more than we do." All that the good padre was able to say was, that once-a-year mass is said for all who have died in the hospital.-(Meyrick, pp. 29, 30.) "One of the new convent towers is miserably disfigured by a projecting screen of wood. The man who rings the bell, stands close by it, and the ugly thing is put there, lest he should see the nuns walking in the garden, or lest they should see him, for a nun has nothing but love to think of, and a powder magazine must be guarded warily. A million sterling has been expended upon this convent; it is magnificent within, wholly of marble, and the colour well disposed. A million sterling and the great square is unfinished, and the city without flagstones, without lamps, without drains!"(Southey, ii. 73.)

66

You would not like the Roman Catholic religion quite so well, if you saw it here in all its naked deformity, could you but see the mummery, and smell the friars."-(Southey, ii. 76.)

"The church is beautiful; the library the finest bookroom I ever saw, and well stored. The friar, who accompanied us, said, 'It would be an excellent room to eat and drink in, and go to play afterwards; and if we liked better to play in the dark, we might shut the windows.' He heard the sacristan remark to me, that there were books enough for me to read there, and asked if I loved reading? and I,' said he, love eating and drinking.' Honest Franciscan! He told us also, that the dress of their order was a barbarous dress, and that dress did not change the feelings. I suspect this man wishes he had professed in France. A Portuguese

of the same family was a nun in France. After the dissolution of the monasteries, her brother immediately engaged with a Portuguese abbess to receive her, and wrote in all haste for the distressed nun. She wrote,

in answer, that she was much obliged to him, but she was married. . . . . Such is Magra; a library where books are never used; a palace, with a mud-wall front, and a royal convent, inhabited by monks, who loathe their situation. The monks often desert; in that case, they are hunted like deserters, and punished, if caught, with confinement and flogging. They take the vows young; at fourteen. Those, who are most stupidly devout, may be satisfied with their life; those who are most abandoned in all vice, may do well also; but a man with any feeling, any conscience, any brains, must be miserable," &c.-(Southey, ii. 113.)

It was not until some months had elapsed, after these remarks had been concluded, that I had the good fortune to peruse Mr Seymour's admirable work, entitled, "A Pilgrimage to Rome," which I earnestly recommend to every reader, who values truthfulness, talent, piety, and candour. From page 151 to page 216, the subject of the nature and fruits of a monastic life is treated in so masterly and interesting a manner, that I must venture to subjoin an abridged and meagre outline, for the sake of those who may not have an opportunity to consult the original, condensing Mr Seymour's information under a few distinct heads.

1. Convents in Italy are so numerous as to have exceeded all his anticipations. 2. They are now entirely divested of the romantic interest connected with the history of their institution during the dark ages. 3. They may be divided into two classes, the first intended as convenient asylums for younger brothers of good families, who find it difficult to marry, and for whom a comfortable provision is thus secured without duties or responsibilities. They dine together, gossip together, attend chapel at stated hours; but religious

"like un

feeling has as little to do in the matter as "with a college life in England;" it is an affair, "not of religion, but of convenience." These establishments are richly endowed; their highly-favoured inmates are married men living in a barrack." A few, indeed, are scholars or theologians, but most of them are frequenters of billiard and gambling tables, drawing-rooms, or other places of entertainment. The second class belong to Franciscans and Capuchins, easily known by their wooden-sandaled feet, and the filth and odour which

indicate their presence. 70 were crowded into one convent; the dirt and stench were almost insupportable. They were almost all laymen "of the baser sort," from twenty to forty-five years of age, who ought to have been working with the spade or pitchfork; many cannot even read or write. 4. The inmates of convents are often the most vicious and depraved of mankind. The mendicants eke out their livelihood by an execrable traffic in masses, and the sale of passports for obtaining egress from purgatory, often at the moderate price of two shillings per soul. There are such gradations in these establishments, in point of comfort, as are found in ordinary hotels or boarding-houses, or, I may add, in gin-palaces and betting-rooms. 5. Not one in a hundred of the monks takes any charge of education. 6. Convents do not alleviate poverty, which prevails always in a direct ratio to the number of such institutions. This holds good, especially of Rome itself, where subscriptions are most rife for the relief of indigence. They check and impede benevolence by their own importunate requirements; and no Italian ever views them in the light of charitable institutions. The monks, and friars, and nuns, says Kirwan (p. 66), collected from the common people, and sympathizing with them, are abroad among them, as the curates or assistants of the priests and bishops, for the purpose of filling their minds with fables, and keeping them in bondage. They are priestly spies among the people, save

those that go into seclusion; and hence you find them begging from the people, sitting with the people in the streets, mingling with them in the market places, lounging with the lazzaroni, and laughing with them, and all for the purpose of doing the dirty work of the priests, and filling their minds with superstitious legends.

IV.-POLICY OF BRITISH STATESMEN IN REFERENCE TO

POPERY.

If we consider the policy, which has been pursued by the rulers of the British nation, in reference to Popery, during the last quarter of a century, we shall find, that, whilst the sovereigns, who have filled the throne, and a great majority of their advisers, were Protestants, the whole tenor of our legislative proceedings, and the entire course of all public men in authority, have been precisely such as they would have been, if our monarchs and their ministers had been Romanists, and had harboured an anxious wish to effect by stealth the gradual triumph of their religion, without exciting the suspicions, or incurring the displeasure, of a population devoted to the interests of Protestant truth. Such governors, in obtaining secular privileges for their co-religionists, would have said (and this is just what our Protestant statesmen have done)," Whilst conceding to you perfect equality in civil matters, we must endeavour to hoodwink and disarm Protestant jealousy, by introducing certain guards and securities. But never mind that; don't be alarmed; they shall all remain a dead letter-not one of them shall ever be enforced; and you shall have carte blanche in the colonies to do what you please-ask, and you shall receive what grants you require. We shall afterwards introduce a system of national education into Ireland, but you shall carve and mould it as you please.

'We're all submission-what you'd have it, make it.'

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