timents of the Roman Catholic clergy while the Pope was in jeopardy, and the societies for distributing the Bible less formidable than they are at present. It is amusing to contrast the feeling evidenced in the late stormy and irreverent discussions, which have taken place upon the subject in the sister country. The author of "The Defence" gives extracts from sundry speeches, which ought to be preserved as beautiful morsels of eloquence, and splendid specimens of liberality and judgment. "The principle of bible reading without note or comment," says the Rev. Mr. Sheehan, "tends only to infidelity in religion and insubordination to the civil government.""When Henry, of unworthy memory, broached his new religion," says the Rev. Mr. Dunphy, "did not men go to the scriptures and draw from them as from a quiver the arrows which were to strike down the ancient faith." "We want not the assistance of the bible," says the Rev. Mr. O'Connell, "to inculcate the principles of Christianity."-" I maintain," says the Rev. Mr. Clowry," that the indiscriminate reading of the scriptures is opposed to the interests of religion as it is to the well-being of society."-" My dear friends," says the Rev. Mr. Sinnott, "let me impress upon your minds this fact, that should you be induced to take the bible home with you to your cabins you would be in danger of learning from it doctrines contrary to the religion of your own infallible church! for it teaches all religions, and from it every sectarian professes to derive his creed."" I beseech you," says Mr. Wall, speaking to the females present," I beseech you to recollect the history of those times, and if it appears that you are or will be mothers of families, when you find the little ones clinging to your knees with filial love tell them to avoid the promiscuous reading of the bible!!"

So much for the Roman Catholic orators in their public speeches, the right reverend and reverend divines in their closets are no less warm in the cause. "The scriptures alone," says Dr. Doyle, under the signature of J. K. L., "have never saved any one: they are incapable of giving salvation: it is not their object; it is not the end for which they were written."-" It is evidently a much more rational plan," says Bishop Milner, "to put the statutes at large into the hands of the illiterate vulgar, telling them to become their own lawyers, than it is to put the text itself of the mysterious bible into their hands for enabling them to hammer their religion and morality out of it." (See his Charge, March 30, 1813.) In his letter to the Orthodox Journal, in October 1813, he also says, "it is evidently impossible to add any notes whatever to the sacred text which

will make it a safe or proper elementary book of instruction to the illiterate poor. And in the same he says "that the labouring poor in Ireland, without a single bible in the village, know more of the revealed truths of the gospel, and can give a more rational as well as a more detailed account of them than the same class of people can in this country, which the bibliomanians boastingly call the land of bibles." Now we flatter ourselves that the mere view of these extracts is enough; they at least stand in need of no note or comment. No true Pro

testant can for a moment doubt of the spirit which dictated them or the motive which gave them birth. Whatever Bishop Milner may think of the bibliomania of the Protestants, the bibliophobia of the Roman Catholics is quite intelligible. In fact the naiveté of the Irish orators betrays itself. "Should you be induced to take the bible home with you to your cabins, you would be in danger of learning from it doctrines contrary to the religion of your own infallible church." We do not doubt it; and therefore we cannot wonder at the caution of the Roman church. Do but persuade the laity in general to read the Scriptures, and that church must fall; her dominion over the minds of men must perish as certainly as darkness recedes before the rising of the sun; and therefore she cannot, must not, permit them to be read. It is as absurd to wonder at the Roman Catholic priests for refusing to permit the general study of the Scripture, as it would be to wonder at an empiric for refusing to publish the ingredients of his prescription, or the mechanic for withholding the secrets of his trade. They all live by their exclusive patents; publish the mystery, and their occupation is gone.

This holy aversion and religious opposition to the general study of the Bible have always been inculcated by the clergy of the Roman church. Mr. Scott, to be sure, publicly declares that there never was a law enacted by the supreme legislative authority of the Catholic church by which the reading of the Scriptures was prohibited; but did he, when he said this, recollect the following Canon of the council of Trent?" De libris prohibitis Regula quarta :-Cum experimento manifestum sit si sacra Biblia vulgari linguâ passim sine discrimine permittantur, plus inde, ob hominum temeritatem, detrimenti quam utilitatis oriri; hâc in parte judicio episcopi aut inquisitoris stetur: ut cum consilio Parochi vel Confessarii Bibliorum a Catholicis auctoribus versorum lectionem in vulgari linguâ eis concedere possint quos intellexerint ex hujusmodi lectione non damnum sed fidei atque pietatis augmentum capere posse: quam facultatem in scriptis habeant. Qui autem absque tali facultate ea

legere seu habere præsumpserit, nisi prius Bibliis ordinario redditis, peccatorum absolutionem percipere non possit." These latter words imply that if a man should read his Bible without leave he will be damned. If this be not a prohibition by legislative authority, we do not know what is.

The ancient Roman Catholic writers abound with passages speaking of the Bible in terms of absolute contempt: they called it " scripturam dubiam, ambiguam; præceptorem mutum; literam occidentem; literam mortuam.'

At the Council of Trent one Bishop said the Bible was atramentum mortuum, dead ink; another said Scripture was "res muta et inanimis;" and a third impiously mentioned the holy volume as "nigrum evangelium," the black gospel. "We will no longer," says Hosius, quoted by Jewell, "place any reliance on those scriptures which have received such various and contradictory interpretations; but rather attend to the voice of God himself than refer to those unprofitable elements (or bare words of holy writ) and place our hopes of salvation in them. It is not necessary for a man to be well versed in the law and gospel, but to be taught of God. It is but lost labour that is engrossed by the sacred writers, for the scripture is but a creature and mere bare letter."

"I cannot imagine," says Bishop Jewell," for what reason our opponents shun with abhorrence the word of God as a thief does the gallows; whether it arises from fear, or consciousness of their own bad cause, or a despair of victory. But at the same time perhaps we need not wonder; for as it is said flies perish most quickly in the sweetest ointments, so these men feel that their cause must be rendered hopeless and finally destroyed by God's word as it were by poison.".

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"St. Chrysostom has admirably enforced the designs of these men. 'Heretics,' he says, close the gates of truth, well knowing that if they are kept open, the church would be no longer theirs.' Theophylact calls the word of God the candle by which the thief is discovered and taken;' and Tertullian declares that the scriptures convict heretics of treachery and deceit."

"One argument is sufficient to prove that their proceedings are neither conducted with honour nor sincerity. That cause which declines a scrutiny and fears the light, justly becomes an object of suspicion; for, as our Saviour says, 'every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved; but he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God." The papists however are not so blind but that they clearly perceive, that if the scriptures

once become generally read and known, their kingdom must perish; and, as it was said in the old time, all the idols of the dæmons whose oracles were formerly consulted in cases of perplexity suddenly be came dumb at the appearace of Christ upon earth, so in these days will all their arts perish, all their influence decay at the preaching of the gospel. For antichrist cannot be dethroned but by the brightness of Christ's advent."

The author of "The Defence" furnishes his readers with a great number of extracts both from the Holy Scriptures and from the Fathers in direct and positive contradiction to the frothy eloquence of the Irish orators, the solemn assertions of the learned divines, and the thundering Bull of Pope Leo XII. To the Pope, who says in his Bull that "the Bible Society is audaciously endeavouring to translate or rather corrupt the holy Scriptures into the vulgar tongues of all nations-from which must result more evil than good," he opposes the words of St. Augustine, who expressly says, "The only preservative of the integrity of scripture is the translating it into so many languages, and the general and perpetual custom of reading it in the church. The holy scriptures cannot be corrupted, because they are and have been in the hands of all Christians." Tó Dr. Doyle, who says, "The scriptures alone have never saved any one: they are incapable of giving salvation; it is not their object; it is not the end for which they were written," he opposes the words of an older doctor called St. John, who says, speaking of the same scriptures, "these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name." To Mr. Wall's pathetic deprecation of Bible reading, and his eloquent entreaty to the ladies not to permit their little darlings to meddle with so dangerous a book, he opposes the express orders of St. Jerome in his epistle to Leta, respecting the cultivation of her daughter, a child: "Instead of jewels and silk let her be enamoured with the holy scriptures, wherein no gold nor skins, nor Babylonian embroideries, but a correct and beautiful variety producing faith will present itself. Let her first learn the Psalter, and be entertained with those divine songs; then be instructed unto life by the Proverbs of Solomon. Let her then learn from Ecclesiastes to despise worldly things, and transcribe from Job the practice of patience and virtue. Let her then pass to the gospels, and never let them be out of her hands, and then imbibe with all the faculties of her mind, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles," &c. Thus we perceive while Leo the Twelfth says that a multitude of translations is the surest way to corrupt the Scriptures, St. Augustine says it is the very surest way to

preserve them from corruption: while Mr. Wall beseeches the Irish mammas to preserve their little ones from the study of the Bible, St. Jerome recommends Leta to let her daughter imbibe it with all the faculties of her mind: and lastly while Dr. Doyle affirms that the Scriptures " are incapable of giving salvation, and were not written for that end," St. John most expressly affirms that this is the very end for which they were written.

But alas what avail these convictions and confutations? Of what profit is it to convict the Roman Catholics of contradicting the Fathers and Scripture itself? they heed not the confutation; they blush not at the conviction: the authority of the Church is paramount-to that alone they bow. But though the effect of written pamphlets may not be very great, yet we feel confident that the vivâ voce discussions which have recently taken place in Ireland, scandalous and irreverent as some of them were, must have done a great deal of good. They will have attracted the attention of the Irish peasantry to the subject; they will no doubt have stimulated curiosity, and the people must and will have a secret desire to see that book which their priests have prohibited with such jealous care. We have recently heard a story, somewhat apocryphal to be sure, about an old lady hiding her Bible in the tea pot; and certainly if she did do so, the Bible must have been unusually small or the tea-pot unusually large: but whether the story be true or false, we do not doubt that the old ladies will be very inquisitive about this prohibited work-and therefore in proportion to the hostility with which the Roman Catholics oppose its distribution, so ought we to promote it. We think, indeed, it would not be a bad ruse de guerre to print bibles in such a form as that they might be easily hid from the lynxlike eyes of the priest, either in a tea-pot or any other piece of furniture which might be equally secure. The Roman Catholic priests say that their flocks shall not read the Bible without their expositions, if they can help it: we have a right to say that at least they shall not want the means. This is surely a very fair and legitimate mode of warfare. A great portion of His Majesty's subjects, amounting, we are boastingly told, to nearly 7,000,000, are prohibited by the orders of a foreign priest from reading the Bible. Now we will not call this an impertinent and tyrannical interference on the part of the foreign priest; we will not call for legislative enactments to prevent it; but we certainly have a good right to supply our poor oppressed fellow subjects with the means of emancipating themselves from this thraldom if they wish it: and therefore, although

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