dred times; during the second he stood immersed in cold water repeating fifty psalms more," with his heart, eyes, and hands raised towards heaven;" the third he gave up to sleep, upon a stone pavement*. Imagine to yourselves, I again request, the patron saint of Ireland, not as an ideal and indistinct personage of legend; but as a real man of flesh and blood. Depict, in the vivid colours of fancy, the bustle, the perpetual motion, the eternal gabbling, the plunging into water for prayer, the waving of the hands for benedictions, the constant falling upon the knees, the stretching of hands, the turning up of eyes, required for the ascetic practices of his life; and then repeat the memorable words of our Saviour-The hour * "Antelucano tempore per nives, gelu, ac pluvias ad preces Deo fundendas, impiger consurgebat; solitus centies interdiu, centiesque noctu Deum orare... Aiunt enim integrum quotidie Psalterium, una cum canticis et hymnis, ducentisque orationibus consuevisse recitare: ter centies per dies singulos flexis genibus Deum adorare, ac in qualibet Hora Canonica, centies se crucis signo munire. Noctem tria in spatia distribuens, primum in centum psalmis percurrendis, et bis centies genuflectendo, alterum in reliquis quinquaginta psalmis, algidis aquis immersus, ac corde, oculis, manibusque ad cœlum erectus, absolvendis insumebat: tertium vero super nudum lapidem stratus, tenui dabat quieti." Die 17 Martii. cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father, in spirit and in truth ; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth*. Compare the sublime simplicity of this description of Christian piety, with the models which your church sets before you; and tell me whether they agree. I will not dispute whether the list of devotional practices attributed to Saint Patrick, be authentic or fictitious, accurate or exaggerated. The church of Rome would not have recorded it in her authorised book of spiritual instruction, if, in her opinion, it did not exalt the piety of her saint. The worthies of the Breviary, whether sketched from nature or pictured from fancy, must be a faithful transcript of Rome's ideal models of Christian perfection. The practices attributed to Saint Patrick are, therefore, made an object of imitation to all the sons of the church of Rome, according to their strength and circumstances; and the principle that such practices are a part of Evangelical * John iv. 23, 24. virtue, will not be questioned by a sincere Roman Catholic. Indeed, among the saints of the Breviary, most will be found commended for similar practices; and not a book of devotion, by writers of that communion exists, which does not represent some bodily exercise or distortion, as an effectual method of pleasing God *. All this, however, is intimately connected with the Roman Catholic notions on penance-a subject which well deserves the dispassionate consideration of every impartial member of that communion. * The least morose of all Roman Catholic saints, Saint Francis de Sales, though not carrying these practices to the degree usual among professed saints, strongly recommends this kind of spiritual gymnastics to his friends. The following are his directions to a gentleman "qui vouloit se retirer du monde.” "Je vous conseille de pratiquer ces exercises pour ces trois mois suivans... que vous vous leviez toujours à six heures matin, soit que vous ayez bien dormi, ou mal dormi, pourvû que vous ne soyez pas malade (car alors il faut condescendre au mal) et pour faire quelque chose de plus les vendredis, vous vous leviez à cinq heures... Item, que vous vous accoutumiez à dire tous les jours, après ou devant l'oraison, quinze Pater noster et quinze Ave, Maria, les bras étendus en guise de crucifix.... Encore, voudrois-je quelquefois la semaine vous couchassiez vêtu. et ces jours-là de fête, vous pourrez bien visiter par manière d'exercice les lieux saints des capucins, S. Bernard, les Chartreux."-Lettres de Saint François de Sales. If it be once settled that self-inflicted suffering is, by itself, a virtue; the progress between a simple fast and the tortures voluntarily endured by the Indian fanatics, is natural and unbroken. The practice of Roman Catholic saints, approaches very nearly indeed to that of the Eastern worshippers of the Evil Principle. Open the Breviary at any of the pages containing the lives of saints, males or females, and you will find uninterrupted abstinence from food (whether real or not, certainly held out to admiration, and sanctioned by the assertion of miracles in its favour) since Ash Wednesday till Whitsunday*: living one half of the year on bread and watert: confinement for four years to a niche excavated in a rock‡; and every where the constant use of flagellation, lacerating bandages, and iron chains bound constantly about the body, immersions in freezing water, and every method of gradually and painfully destroying life. The Roman Catholics will talk of penance in modera *Life of St. Catharine of Sienna. + St. Elizabeth of Portugal. The blessed Dalmatius Monerius, in the Propria SS. Hispan. tion; but where is the line drawn, where, indeed, can it be drawn, to point the beginning of excess? Must I again revive the memory of the victims whom I have seen perish in their youth, from the absolute impossibility of moderating the enthusiasm which their church thus encourages? It is chiefly among the tender and delicate of the female sex, that the full effects of these examples are seen. How can a confessor prescribe limits to the zeal of an ardent mind, which is taught to please God by tormenting a frail body? Teach an enthusiastic female that self-inflicted death will endear her to her heavenly bridegroom, and she will press the rope or the knife to her lips. Distant danger is lighter than a feather to hearts once swollen with the insane affections of religious enthusiasm. Talk to them about the duty of preserving life, and they will smile at the good natured casuistry, which would moderate their pursuit of a more noble and more disinterested duty— that of loving their God above their own lives. Their church has besides, practically dispensed the duty of self-preservation in favour of penance. Does not the young victim read of her model |