priest; it is good for nothing without it. If the pubican, of whom we read, had lived now, it would have been quite irregular, according to the Catholic notion, that he should have gone down to his house justified, when he confessed only to God. And the penitent must take care what sort of a priest it is to whom he confesses, else he might as well remain impenitent. It must be a priest approved by the bishop. Well, now, this is a queer arrangement, that our pardon should be suspended on such a condition that angels, in other words, must wait before they express any joy that a sinner has repented, until he has gone and told his sins to a priest approved by a bishop! Who suspended it there, I wonder? Not Isaiah. Read his 55th chapter. Nor Peter, nor Solomon, nor John, nor Paul. Read them and see. There is not a word in the Bible about confessing to a priest. So I found that the two guides did not agree in this matter. The Catholic Manual said the confession must be to a priest; but the holy Scriptures insist on no such thing, but direct that the confession be made to God.

This thought occurred to me: What if a sinner confess his sins with a sincere repentance, though not to a priest, what is to be done with his soul? Must pardon be denied him, and he be consigned to perdition, because, though he confessed penitently, yet he did it not to a priest? Really this is making rather too much of the priest. It is making too important a character of him altogether. I do not believe that our salvation is so dependent on the deference we pay the priest.

Before the conditions, on one of which I have been remarking, are mentioned, there is this general statement: "Plenary indulgences granted to the faithful

throughout these states, at the following times ;" and then follows a specification of nine different seasons when plenary indulgences may be had. I did not know before that pardons were confined to any set times; I always supposed that they might be had summer and winter, night and day, and at any hour of either-in short, whenever a penitent heart breathes its desire to God. My mistake must have arisen from the fact that I have been in the habit of consulting the Bible on these matters. I never saw "The Christian's Guide to Heaven" before in my life. I have always used the Bible as a guide, for want of a better.

Now that I am on the subject of confession, I may as well make another reference to the manual. There is an article or chapter headed "The Confiteor." In it the person wishing to be guided to heaven makes this confession, from which it will appear that Catho lics do not confine their confessions to the priest, but extend them to many other beings: "I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary, ever virgin, to blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned." Now, I do not see the use of naming so many. The confession, I think, should have stopped with the first mentioned-Almighty God. What have the rest to do with it? How is it any of their business? The person has not sinned against them. Surely every sinner may say to God, "Against thee, thee ONLY have I sinned," since David could. Besides, this coupling of these creatures with the Creator, as worthy equally with himself to receive our confessions of sin, savors strongly of idolatry. Confession is made to them on the same principle that

prayer is. Each is an act of worship-one of those things which should be confined exclusively to God. I wonder the Catholics will not be satisfied with one great and glorious object of worship, God, the Father Son, and Spirit. Why will they in their devotions associate creatures with the Creator? The book I am reviewing contains numerous and very offensive examples of it. I shall continue the review in my next.

17. The Review of the Catholic Book continued.

The next thing that struck me as worthy of notice in the perusal of the book was this-that the devout Catholic is represented as making the following solemn declaration concerning the Holy Scriptures: "Neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers." I smiled when I read this, and I thought within myself, if that is his determination, he will not be likely ever to take them at all. What an intention this, which the Catholic expresses-never to attach any meaning to a passage which he may read in the Bible, until he has first ascertained whether certain ancient persons called the fathers all agreed in any interpretation of it, and if so, what that interpretation is! What should give such authority and weight to the interpretation of the fathers? Why cannot we ascertain what the Bible means as well as they could ? What helps had they which we have not? and why

require that they be unanimous? What a roundabout method this of finding out what a book means! First, the reader has got to ascertain who are entitled to be called fathers. He must make out a list of them all. If one is overlooked, it vitiates the interpretation, though all the rest should agree in it. But supposing him to have got a catalogue of the whole number from Barnabas to Bernard, the next step in the process is to ascertain how they all interpreted the Bible. For this purpose he must pore over their works. But some of them left no works behind them. How shall he ever find out what they thought of this and that passage of Scripture? And yet he must somehow or other ascertain, their opinions, else how can he compare them with the opinions of the other fathers, and discover their agreement with them? For you will remember the consent must be unanimous. Others of the fathers left works behind them, but they have not come down to us. How shall the reader of the Bible know what those lost works contained? Yet he must know what they thought, else how can he be sure that they thought in accordance with the views of those fathers whose works are preserved to us. I cannot see how this difficulty is to be got over, for my part. It is altogether beyond me. But supposing it to be surmounted, there remains the task of comparing the opinions of all these Greek and Latin fathers, to the number of a hundred or two, one with another, to see if they all agree; for the consent, you know, must be unanimous. Those parts of Scripture in the interpretation of which they did not agree, are to go for nothing. Indeed, if ninetynine should be found to accord in a particular interpretation, it must be rejected if the hundredth father

Popery.

had a different opinion of its meaning. I cannot help thinking that it is the better, as certainly it is the shorter and easier method, just for every one to take up and "search the Scriptures," and "if any lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally."

As the case is, I do not wonder that the Catholics do not read the Bible. They have not come to that yet. They are still among the fathers, searching out and comparing their opinions, so as to know how to take the Bible. By and by, if they live long enough, when they have ascertained what the fathers agreed on, they may go to reading the Scriptures.

It seems odd that one cannot, without mortal sin, attach a meaning to such a passage as John, 3: 16, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," until he has first ascertained what Cyprian, Jerome, Hilary, both the Gregorys, and indeed all the fathers thought of it, and whether they agreed in their interpretation of it. How any one can read it without understanding it in spite of himself, I cannot see. Ah, but they say the Scriptures are so obscure. And are the fathers so very clear? Why cannot we understand the Greek of John and Paul, as well as that of Chrysostom?

The thing which next attracted my observation in the book was the following: "In the Mass there is of fered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead." The Mass! and what is that? The Bible could not tell me. So I had to resort to the dictionary. It is the name which the Catholics give to the sacrament of the Lord's supper