In 1828, the Rev. Mr. Rowe was sent from Stonyhurst, to take charge of the Mission. His stay was of short duration. He remained but two years. In 1832, the galleries of the chapel, in which the school children were accustomed to sit, were removed, the public examination in the catechism was abolished, and the pastoral instruction of the children altogether neglected. In 1835, the schools were in so sad a condition, that there remained neither books nor slates, and only four catechisms for the whole school.

That vile system, of DENUNCIATION FROM THE ALTAR, appears to have been about this period again introduced, in language the most violent, characteristic of that bloody, persecuting Church, whose spirit of meekness and Christian charity shines forth with such lustre in the decrees of Lateran and the fires of Smithfield. For a series of years Trenchardstreet Chapel has afforded to the public a striking instance of Roman Catholic ideas of OATHS and justice.

VARIETIES.

POPERY HEROIC.-The poet says

"One murder makes a villain, millions a hero." If so, what an heroic character does Popery deserve throughout the world!

THE FORTUNATE CURSE.-Old Fuller, who is an honest and discerning writer, observes, concerning the excommunicating of our King John by Pope Innocent III., "five years did King John lie under this sentence of excommunication, in which time we find him more fortunate in his martial affairs than either before or after. For he made a successful voyage into Ireland, and was very triumphant in a Welsh expedition, and stood on honourable terms in all foreign relations."-Church History, vol. i., p. 337. It seems as if blessings and curses changed places when the Pope pronounced them, and that what he bound on earth was loosed in heaven. Since his curse proves so fortunate in one instance, the greatest service he could do us, at any critical time, would be to thunder out a bull of excommunication against us.

INQUISITION. TORTURE BY FIRE.

It is well that Protestants should know what Papists intend to do with them when they once more gain the ascendancy, should GoD, for the punishment of our unthankfulness for our religious mercies, ever permit such an awful visitation. The above cut represents one of those multiplied species of horrible cruelty which they perpetrate upon BIBLE-loving, SIN-hating Protestants. It is a kind of torture which seems to be peculiar to the members of the so-called "Holy Roman Catholic Church." No heathens have yet been discovered

M

who have been known to adopt it. It is termed the “Torture by fire." They order a large iron chafing-dish, full of lighted charcoal, or other fire, to be brought in, and held close to the soles of the feet of the person to be tortured. The feet are greased over with lard that the heat of the fire may more quickly pierce through them. The intolerable pain which this occasions may be more readily conceived than described. Such is Popish charity-such is the religious toleration which they afford to those who differ from them, and oppose their monstrous lies and absurdities!

CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY.-HORRIBLE MURDER BY A POPISH PRIEST IN FRANCE.

On Monday last the Court of Assizes, at Toulouse, entered upon the trial of a case which has excited the most painful sensation in that city and the adjacent districts for miles round, and which promises to be one of the most extraordinary ever taken cognizance of by any tribunal. This interest, painful and appalling though it be, exists not only in the circumstances of the crime itself, but also in the manner in which it was brought home to the individual charged with its perpetration. For, although we have not received the result of this judicial inquiry, there can be no doubt that the person accused of the deed will be found guilty by the jury; and it is most probable that their verdict will have been delivered before this narrative appears in print. The victim of the double crime of rape and murder was a young female of fifteen, named CECILE COMBETTES; and the accused is a PRIEST, named LEOTADE (otherwise Louis Bonafons,) belonging to the "brotherhood of the Christian Doctrine at Toulouse."

We must preface our recital by stating that the establishment occupied by the brotherhood is called the "Community," and consists of two large houses and several smaller buildings, having vast court-yards and gardens attached to them, and overlooking the Rue Rignet (Rignet-street). Separated by a wall from the principal garden, is the "Cemetery of Saint

Aubyn;" and forming the boundary of another side of the garden, is a row of out-houses, consisting of stables, cow-sheds, granaries, and a sort of barn, where provender for the cattle is kept. These few particulars must be kept in view, in order to render the ensuing narrative completely intelligible.

CECILE COMBETTES was the daughter of humble but honest and industrious parents, dwelling in the city of Toulouse. She was apprenticed in April, 1846, to M. CONTE, a bookbinder, and would have finished her period of service in the same month of the year 1847-that is to say a few days after the one on which the deplorable catastrophe occurred that deprived her of life. As stated above, she was only fifteen years old; and we may add that she was short for her age, but well formed, and graceful in her deportment. Her disposition was amiable, her principles virtuous; and she was beloved by all who knew her.

We now come to the history of the crime itself. On the 16th of April, 1847, at half-past six o'clock in the morning, a person named RASPAND entered the "Cemetery of Saint Aubyn," accompanied by LEVEQUE (the porter of the burial-ground), and a M. LAROQUE (a carpenter of Toulouse). They were proceeding towards the chapel, the door of which faces the wall separating the cemetery from the garden of the "Community of the Christian Doctrine,” when they beheld the body of a female at a little distance; indeed, within a few paces of the wall itself. The body was lying with its face downward, and in a position which seemed as if the female had knelt down first, and then fallen forward until the elbows touched the ground. RASPAND moved the corpse in the least degree so as to obtain a view of the countenance, when the features of CECILE COMBETTES were instantly recognised by himself and his companions. An alarm was raised; and in due time the Judge of Instruction, the Commissary of Police, and other authorities, were upon the spot.

A strict, laborious, and skilfully conducted investigation now commenced. The first question that arose was-had the body been brought thither, and there deposited in the position in which it was found? A variety of circumstances, fully detailed in the voluminous indictment from which this narrative is abridged, forbade that hypothesis; and other

circumstances, each infinitesimally minute in itself, but admirably com bined by the keenness and shrewdness of the authorities, established the fact that the body had been thrown over the wall from the garden of "the Community The authorities accordingly entered the grounds belonging to that monastic establishment; and, on examining that portion of the garden which was just behind the part of the wall where the body was supposed to have been thrown over into the cemetery, they found two distinct marks, or rather holes, formed by the lower extremities of a ladder. There were several ladders in the "Community;" and all were immediately examined; but only one out of the number fitted the exact position of the holes. All these circumstances proved that the corpse of CECILE COMBETTES had been thrown from the "Community” garden into the cemetery; and as, in the meantime, the medical man had discovered that the victim had been murdered by repeated blows on the head, after being previously violated, it now remained to detect and mark out the criminal from amidst the numerous ecclesiastics, novices, and their retainers, dwelling in the " Community."

About the garments of the murdered girl, had been discovered two or three pieces of hay or straw; this fact led to an examination of the barn where the provender for the cattle was kept; and there the authorities found ample proofs to convince them that this out-house had been the theatre alike of the rape and the murder. The medical inquest had shown that there were some stains on the linen of the deceased, corresponding in appearance with some found on other linen in the laundry of the "Brotherhood." Now the authorities fancied that they had found a clue to the murderer; and, indeed, after a great deal of trouble, they succeeded in ascertaining that the shirt just alluded to had been worn by Brother LEOTADE, a member of the "Community," and aged 35. The magistrates next visited the dormitories; and they discovered that the only one from which the occupant might let himself out into the gardens by night, was that tenanted by Brother LEOTADE. Other circumstances, trivial when viewed separately, but important when taken as a whole, increased the weight of suspicion already attached to that ecclesiastic; and the authorities pursuing their investigation, learnt that he had been