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

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 offered 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;

or rather to the half of it; for you know they divide it, and giving the bread to the people, do with the wine I cannot tell what. They say that it is perfect in one kind, and anathematize all who say it is not. Their curse is on me now while I am writing. Nevertheless I must ask, if it was perfect in one kind, why did Christ institute it in both kinds? Why did he not stop with the bread, reserving the cup? Was it to make the sacrament more than perfect? But this is reasoning. I forget myself. The Catholics don't hold to reasoning.

An idea occurs to me here which I beg leave to express. If the sacrament is perfect in either kind, why do not the priests sometimes give the people the cup? Why do they always give them the bread? And why originally did they withhold the cup rather than the bread? Some persons may imagine a reason, but I will content myself with asking the question.

But to proceed. They say that "in the Mass there is offered to God," &c. Why, what do they mean? There is nothing offered to God. What is offered is to men. Christ says, offering to his disciples the bread, “take, eat," and reaching out the cup, he says, "drink ye all of it." There is something offered to men in this sacrament, even the precious memorials of the Savior's propitiatory death; but every one who reads the account, sees that there is nothing offered to God. Yet the Catholics, leaning on tradition, say there is in it "a true, proper and propitiatory sacrifice" offered to God. A sacrifice included in the sacrament! How is that? And a propitiatory sacrifice too! I always supposed that propitiatory sacrifices ceased with the offering up of the Great Sacrifice

when the Lamb of God bled and died. Do we not read, that "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," "now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself?" "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many "—and it is said of his blood that it "cleanseth from all sin." I don't know what we want after this, of those unbloody sacrifices which the Catholics talk of as offered continually in the service of the Mass. What is the use of them, if they are unbloody, as they say, since "without shedding of blood is no remission ?"

According to the Catholics, it was premature in Christ to say on the cross, 66 it is finished." They deny that it is finished. They say it is going on stillthat Christ is offered whenever Mass is said. Once Christ was offered, the Bible says; but the Roman church affirms that he is offered many times daily; whenever and wherever mass is said!

I do really wonder that this religion has lasted so long in the world. How the human mind can entertain it for a day, I do not know. See how at every step it conflicts with reason. See in how many points it does violence to common sense. See, in this case, how boldly it contradicts the dying declaration of the Savior. It is a religion unknown to the Bible—and yet still in existence, aye, and they say, making progress, and that even in this home of freedom! If it be so, which I question, I blush that I am an American, and am almost ashamed that I am a man.

18. The Pope an Idolater.

It may seem a very uncharitable title I give this article. What, some will say, charge the Pope with being an idolater! What do you mean? I mean just what I say, that this boasted head of the church, and self-styled vicar of Christ, residing at Rome, ascribes divine attributes, and pays divine honors to a creature, even to a human being, a partaker in our mortality and sin! and if that is not idolatry, I don't know what idolatry is. If that is not idolatry, the worship of the golden calf was not-the worship of the host of heaven was not the worship of the gods of Hindooism is not. What truer definition of idolatry can be given than that it is an ascribing of divine attributes, and a paying of divine honors to a creature? It does not matter what the creature is, whether it be the angel nearest the throne of God, or an onion that grows in the garden, such as they of Egypt once worshiped. It is its being a created thing-it is its being not God, that makes the service done it idolatry.

But can I make good this charge against the successor of St. Peter, as they call him? If I cannot, I sin not merely against charity, but against truth. But I can establish it. Nor will I derive the proof from the Pope's enemies; nor will I look for it in the histories of the Papacy. The Pope himself shall supply me with the proof. Out of his own mouth will I judge him. If his own words do not convict him of idolatry, believe it not. But if they do, away with the objection that it is an offence against charity to speak of such a thing as the Pope's being an idolater. My cha