POPE BONIFACE IV.

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state insignia of the Pope." Jupiter's bronze statue has the great toe literally worn away by the pilgrims daily kissing it, in memory of St. Peter; and spectators may see every morning an indiscriminate crowd of beggars, thieves, monks, and ladies, who all reverentially wipe what remains of Jupiter's toe, the ladies enthusiastically using their embroidered pocket-handkerchiefs before taking their turn with graceful humility to salute this transformed deity. Thus the Papists have literally done like the people of Lystra, who "called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius!" The late Sir William Drummond was much censured for comparing Christianity to Heathenism, but how much more to blame are those who make

it so.

The inscription over the Roman Pantheon is as follows:-"Impiously dedicated of old by Agrippa to Jove and all the gods, now piously consecrated by Pope Boniface IV. to the blessed Virgin and all the saints!" Nothing can be more gorgeous than the statue of Juno at Rome, now adorned to represent the Virgin. Mary, who on earth led a life of the most perfect simplicity in dress and habits, is now represented in diamonds that no empress could match, and her votaries have committed an odd anachronism by putting upon their idol a pair of splendid ear-rings.

When the Italian banditti commit their darkest

b

crimes, they nevertheless wear a representation of the Virgin suspended from the throat, which is one evidence among thousands how superstition sanctions immorality; and the Spanish peasantry have so little real respect for their idols, that when, contrary to their prayers, any disasters occur, they revile these lifeless figures in the grossest language, and habitually make jests upon them. At Lisbon once, a miraculous image not having bowed its head at a time when the priest expected, he spoke to it very authoritatively again, before a large crowd assembled rapturously to witness the supernatural movement, when a small boy put his head out from beneath the drapery, saying, “It is not my fault, sir, for the string is broken."

The celebrated image of the Virgin Mary at Saragossa, supposed to perform miracles, is a little black doll, dressed in scarlet satin and gold; but there are rival dolls in every city of Spain, where the most angry jealousy rages fiercely between the inhabitants respecting the superiority of their favourite image. It is a sign of the times now in the English streets, to observe the image boys carrying little stucco crucifixes, and St. Josephs, to be sold for about ninepence each.

If the Virgin Mary being called in Scripture "blessed among women " be a sufficient warrant for giving her divine worship, it should be as much transferred to Leah, who said, "Happy am

Judges, v. 24.

I, for the daughters will call me blessed;" and when Jael killed Sisera, Deborah in her inspired song says, "Blessed ABOVE women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be; blessed shall she be ABOVE women." Our Divine Saviour in his last hour of suffering guarded against any mistake in respect to the reverence due to Mary by calling her, not "Mother," but "Woman; " and as a mere woman, much to be respected, though unable even to succour herself, he refers her to the friendly care of John. In Alphonso Liguori's work, "The Glories of Mary," a vision is mentioned, of " two ladders, one red, at the summit of which stood Jesus Christ; the other white, at the top of which presided Mary. The saint who saw this observed, that many who endeavoured to ascend the first ladder, after mounting a few steps, fell down; and on trying again, were equally unsuccessful, so that they never attained the summit; but a voice having told them to make a trial of the white ladder, they soon gained the top, the blessed Virgin having held forth her hands to help him." How obvious are the inferences meant to be drawn from this worse than foolish legend! But Romanism teaches that Mary is more merciful, and more willing to welcome sinners, than that Divine Saviour of whom it is said, "we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our

infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

Pius IX. wrote lately from Gaeta in a circular letter thus: "The Virgin Mary is placed between Christ and the Church, because it is God's will that she should receive all through Mary." Thus the object of a false creed always is, to place something between the people and that Divine Saviour, who came from Heaven and lived among men to prove His desire that we should come with perfect confidence to Himself. Feeble and sinful mortals could not have survived the glorious vision of God, therefore our Saviour assumed a human form, with every innocent feeling of man's nature, that he might adapt Himself to our necessities. The Romanists, not satisfied with the glorious simplicity of this plan for our redemption, still find their thoughts so dazzled by contemplating the majestic dignity of our Redeemer, that they have recourse to the angels. These being still too bright, they canonize mortals, to whom they pray; but again Romanists drop the scale much lower by having recourse to images of these saints; and at last, to relieve the imagination from any oppression of superiority, the Papists take a living mortal man, their daily companion, of a mortal, sinful nature like their own, and having ordained him to be a priest, they make him their confessor, and transfer to him that office of intercession

which Christ came on earth to assume exclusively Himself. Thus, like Adam after his fall, they "hide themselves from God."

Ignatius Loyola, in his last moments, said that his followers must believe black to be white, if told to do so; and a Romanist giving up the independent dignity of man, as God created him, free, intelligent, and personally responsible, is told he can have no salvation but by doing and believing whatever he is told by his infallible Pope or priest to do and to believe. If a Protestant's life depended on believing what is contrary to the evidence of his senses, he could not manage to do so; but the salvation of a Papist is forfeited if he cannot believe black is white when told to do so. Is there rest in such a Church? The Protestant looks at a picture, and is told that it winks, or that it bleeds; but even if perfectly willing to believe the story he cannot do so, because he sees the eyes immovably steady; but the Papist must not only say so without perceiving it, but must actually believe so, or he is lost. When Petruchio made Katherine take the sun for the moon, he could only oblige her to agree with him verbally, but her own private opinion on the subject was probably free, which is not the privilege of a Romanist.

"The responsibility of forming some judgment is one which, however unfit we may deem ourselves to bear it, we cannot possibly get rid of,