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.

The

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. 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

Saint Theresa, that "her ardour in punishing the body was so vehement as to make her use hairshirts, chains, nettles, scourges, and even to roll herself among thorns, regardless of a diseased constitution?"-Is she not told that St. Rose, "from a desire to imitate St. Catharine*, wore, day and night, three folds of an iron chain round her waist; a belt set with small needles, and an iron crown armed inside with points? That she made to herself a bed of the unpolished trunks of trees, and that she filled up the interstices with pieces of broken pottery ?" She did all this in spite of her" tortures from sickness," and by this means she obtained the frequent visits of saints and angels; and heard Christ himself uttering the words, "Rose of my heart, be thou my bride." Can the poor, weak, visionary recluse doubt the reality of scenes attested by her church, or question the lawfulness of slow self-murder, supported by the brightest of her commended models †?

* Observe the effect of the proposed models. The Breviary records a number of similar imitations: every one acquainted with Roman Catholics must have seen them repeated every day. St. Theresa...." Per duodeviginti annos gravissimis morbis et variis tentationibus vexata, constantissimè meruit

mankind whilst every individual may be made his own tormentor by adopting the practices which that church represents as the means to arrive at Christian perfection. Zeal and sincerity, are equally dangerous under the tuition of Rome. The Catholic nunneries rob society of the most amiable and virtuous female minds-those who in the practice of the social duties, would be a blessing to their relatives and friends, and patterns of virtue to the community-to make their lives, at the best, a perpetual succession of toilsome and useless practices. The quiet and soberminded are made the slaves of outward ceremonies; the ardent and sensitive are doomed to enthusiasm or madness. Such are the invariable results of the models which Rome presents them daily for imitation.

The love of external ceremonies is notorious in the Roman Catholic church; but few, even among the persons whom I address, will probably have given a distinct and separate consideration to the special models, by which their church sanctions and recommends this peculiar manner of sanctity. Let them, therefore, conceive themselves as con-