to me they might have accepted our Bibles until they could procure their own better Bibles. An imperfectly translated Bible is better than none: no translation of the Bible was ever so bad as to be worse than no Bible. What if the DOUAY is before all other Bibles, yet king James' may answer one's turn until he can get the Douay. The Catholics complain that we give their people an erroneously translated Bible: why, then, do they not supply them with a correct translation? When they undertake that, we will cease to trouble them. We would be very glad to, see every Catholic family possessing, and capable of reading, the Douay Bible, although it does make repentance towards God to consist in doing penance appointed by men. But that they have no idea of doing. Does not the Pope forbid the use of the Bible in the vulgar tongue! I know many Catholics have it, but it is no part of their religion to have a Bible. They get their Christianity without the trouble of searching the Scriptures. Indeed they would in vain search in the Scriptures for what they call Christianity. If they were not perfectly conscious that their religion is not to be found in the Bible, do you suppose they would denounce and persecute that book as they do? Would they direct their inquiries to fathers, and councils, and priests for information, rather than to prophets, evangelists, and apostles?

3*

Mr. H. the Goliath of the Catholics, seems to be very fond of asking questions which he thinks nobody can answer. I am not acquainted with any writer who makes more frequent use of the interrogation point. But his questions are not quite so unanswerable as he supposes. I will just answer two of the string of questions with which he commences a recent letter to Mr. B. and then I beg leave to ask a few.

He wants to know first, what the Protestant religion is. He has been often told, but I will tell him again. It is the religion of the Bible. It was not called Protestant when the Bible was written, for then there was no corruption of Christianity to protest against. But it is the same, however called. There it is, in the Bible. Read it. Read any part of it. You cannot go amiss to find the religion of the Reformation in the Bible. Read particularly the epistle to the Romans, to whom Catholics pretend to refer their origin; or the epistle to the Ephesians. I wonder if a passage from either of these prominent epistles was ever quoted by any one in proof of any peculiarity of the Roman Catholic church! I suspect never. Protestants, however, make great use of them.

But, says the interrogator, "tell us what particular doctrines constitute the Protestant religion. Telling us it is the religion of the Bible, is telling us where it is, but not what it is." And is it not enough to tell you where you may find a thing? Have you no eyes? Have you no mind? Do you want one to think for you? Is not that all which Jesus Christ did? He gave

the Scriptures to the Jews, and said, "search them." So we put the Bible into your hand, and say, there is our religion. And yet you ask, “Where was your religion before Luther?" Before Luther! we tell you where it was before the earliest fathers. It was in the Gospels and Epistles, where it is now, and ever will be. What have we to do with Luther or Augustine, or any of them, until we get as far back into antiquity as St. John?

But Mr. H. asks again, "What society of Christians ever taught this pretended religion of Christ previous to the Reformation ?" Why, Mr. H. do not affect such ignorance-you must be joking, when you ask such a question. Did you never hear of a society of Christians residing at Rome, some of whom were of Cæsar's household, to whom one Paul wrote a letter, which has come down to us? Now, if it cannot be ascertained what that society of Christians "taught," yet it can easily be ascertained what was taught them. It is only to read the letter. And I think it not improbable that that society of Christians professed and taught what St. Paul taught them.

But there was another respectable society of Christians, a good while "previous to the Reformation," who seem to have known something about this "pretended religion of Christ," called Protestant. They dwelt in a city named Ephesus. That same Paul resided among them three years, preaching the Gospel, and he did it faithfully. He "shunned not to declare all the counsel of God." After establishing a flourishing church there, he went away, and subsequently addressed an epistle to them, which also has come down to us. In this epistle it is to be presumed

that he embodied the substance of the Gospel, which he had taught them "publicly and from house to house." He is not to be suspected of preaching one thing and writing another. Will Mr. H. deny that the society of Christians at Ephesus professed and taught the doctrines of the epistle to the Ephesians? I think not. Well, sir, what are the doctrines of that epistle? Are they yours or ours-Catholic or Protestant? I will leave it to any intelligent infidel on earth to decide. Will Mr. H. agree to the reference? O no, he wants us to leave it to a pope, and general council, and the unanimous fathers.

I have told Mr. H. now of two societies of Christians who "taught this pretended religion of Christ previous to the Reformation." I could tell of more ; but two are enough. He only asked for one.

Now I would ask Mr. H. a question. Where was your religion, Mr. H. at the time the Bible was written? I am curious to know. How came the evangelists and apostles to know nothing about it, if it is really the religion of Christ? Perhaps Mr. H. can clear up this difficulty. I wish he would, if he can. I do not want him to say where his religion was after the Bible was written, and after all the evangelists and apostles were dead. I am informed on that point. I want to know where the Roman Catholic religion was before those good men died; where it was before the fathers.

They talk about the antiquity of the Roman Catholic religion. It is old, I must confess. It bears many marks of age upon it. But the difficulty is, it is not old enough by a century or two at least. They say it is the first form of Christianity. That is a

mistake. It is the second. The first appeared for a while, then "fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared of God," and re-appeared at the Reformation. They call it a new religion. But no, it is the old restored. If any one doubts the identity of the restored religion, let him but compare its features with that which appeared and flourished in the apos

tolic age.

Another question I beg leave to ask Mr. H. "Did the first Christians of Rome hold the doctrines contained in the epistle to the Romans, or did they not?" If they did not, they must have departed from the faith sooner than Paul predicted that they would. If they did hold the doctrines of the epistle, then, since these are the very doctrines which the friends of the Reformation contend for, have we not here the example of a society holding the doctrines of the Reformation long before the actual era of the Reformation? I have other questions to ask, but I wait for these to be answered.

9. The Distinction of Sins into Mortal and Venial.

Mr. Editor,-I was not aware, until recently, that Roman Catholics of this age, and in this country, make that practical use which I find they do of the distinction of sins into mortal and venial. For the truth of the following narrative I can vouch. An intelligent gentleman being, a few weeks since, expostulated with by a Protestant lady, on his spending the whole of a certain Sabbath in playing cards, replied with