disgusting, and contemptible as it appears in the worst pages of the Breviary. I have at this moment before me an Angelical Exercise, which the same English Manual of Devotion recommends in the following terms: "Whosoever is devoted to this exercise in honour of the blessed Virgin Mary, in reading over every point, may meditate upon it for the space of one Hail Mary, or more, and by God's grace, he will in a short time find himself greatly increase in love towards that blessed queen of Heaven; and at the hour of death will, by so pious a mother, be received as her dearest child. Nor can such a one, according to St. Anselm and St. Bernard, possibly perish, but shall find life everlasting, and taste of the joys of eternal bliss*.”

Under these assurances the devout Roman Catholic is urged to peruse a series of questions, as from the Virgin Mary, and give his own answers, in the words which the book suggests. I select the Exercise for Monday as a specimen, not be

* Page 275.

cause its tone of devotion is more puerile than the rest, but as containing a fresh and striking proof of the indefatigable industry of Roman Catholic priests, in entrapping young people to take the dangerous vow of perpetual celibacy.

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"I am the Queen of Virgins, Regina Virginum,

says the glorious Mother of God. Will you, my dear child, remain a virgin all your life, and live, as it were, an angel in flesh, as did my dearly beloved son Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Agnes, St. Catherine, and a thousand others, my devoted children, who have rather chosen to lose their lives than their virginity? I will love you as I have loved them, and cherish you as I cherish the angels, and, if it be possible, more than the angels themselves; and moreover, my child, I will obtain your name shall be written in the book of the blessed; and assure you, with a heart truly maternal, that at your death you will wish you had been the most chaste and holy in the world. Think well upon it, and resolve the best.-Hail Mary!"

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'Yes, my most dear Mother! I desire to be

pure all my life, as well in body as soul: I

do, I say, most humbly desire it, and most earnestly beseech you, dear Lady, to obtain for me that which you so much recommend to me. I do here, prostrate, reverence you, O sacred Virgin Mary, Mother of the Word incarnate! and together with the holy thrones and all celestial spirits, ever bless and praise you infinitely, the Morning Star, Stella Matutina; for that you, the most beautiful of all creatures, were the first that did vow perpetual chastity, preparing the way to so many virginal souls which have already followed, and shall hereafter follow you in so high, so glorious, and so divine an enterprise.-Hail Mary!"

In the name of the Father of Spirits, "whose eyes are upon the truth," I entreat such as love the Author of our common faith, more than the name of a religious party, not to efface the impression of shame which these passages must produce, by the usual method of recrimination. I protest before Heaven, that neither through these quotations, nor by any expression which in the course of this work may have flowed from my

feelings, it has been my purpose to hurt yours. Remember, that whatever absurdities you might glean from Protestant writers, cannot affect a church whose authorised articles of faith and form of prayer, have nothing in common with such aberrations from common sense and the Gospel. Observe, on the other hand, how naturally the credulity and dangerous sentimentality with which your pious books abound, flow from the system of Rome, exhibited in her prayer-book, as well as in her whole conduct in regard to miracles and devotional practices. Remark the activity and watchfulness with which she has at all times persecuted all kinds of books, wherein the least insinuation was thrown out, not against her articles of faith, but even the least part of this her deluding system. Compare it with the supine indifference which she exhibits in giving free course to thousands of books which, at this very day, propagate every thing that can degrade the understanding and enfeeble the mind, under the name of piety. When you have candidly and honestly weighed all this, decide with yourselves, if it be not the part of every

ingenuous and liberal Catholic of these kingdoms, to strike out the Roman from his religious denomination, and place in its stead the noble epithet of Christian? Preserve, with God's blessing, so much of your tenets as may appear to you consistent with his word; but disown a church which, by her miracles, libels the Gospel history with imposture; and whose mawkish piety disfigures the sublime Christian worship into drivelling imbecility.