ancles, bent inwards. Now the said merriment of the Reverend Father, I felt as contributing to make me exceedingly ridiculous and sheepish. 'So," says he, “ you have fallen foul of Nel M'Callum, the most notorious shuler in the province-a gipsey, a fortune-teller, and a tinker's wife; but rest contented, you are not the first she has gulled-but beware the next time." "There is no danger of that," said I, with peculiar emphasis. W.

REVIEW.

A Narrative of Three Years Residence in Italy, 1819 to 1822, with Illustrations of the Present State of Religion in that country, 12mo.-London: John Murray, 1828.

A Tour in Italy and Sicily, by L. Simond, 8vo.-London: Longman & Co. 1828, 16s,

Sketch of the Present State of the Island of Sardinia, by Captain William Henry Smith, 8vo.-London: John Murray, 1828.

As Christian Examiners, it has often been with us a subject of consideration, how we might best expose the painted Romanism, which from the days of Bossuet and Gother up to the present time, has been palmed on Protestant liberality as Popery truly represented. And when we have heard the Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain issuing their solemn declaration that the Catholic doctrines, as they call them, have been misrepresented by Protestant bigotry, we have asked ourselves the question, how shall we best succeed in shewing that Romanism is a double dealer? How evince that this Janus has two faces?. How, when Popery walks thus delicately before the senate of Great Britain, as Agag approached Saul, expose in her proper form and gait a deceiver to the world? Shall we, to meet our purpose, review the ingenious and laboured exposures of Messrs. Phelan and O'Sullivan in their digest of the parliamentary evidence, or take in hand the masterly refutations of Townshend and Philpotts. No-But rather as a more practical and amusing disclosure of the true state and bearings of the Roman Church; we shall, through the help of travellers, proceed to head quarters; and as the Author of all truth has informed us, that a tree is best known by its fruit,' we desire to inspect popery, not as walking with measured and mincing gait before its Protestants triers, but as lying loose and in dishabille at home in Italy.

And is not this a fair mode of treating the question?-Who will presume to say that if he wanted to ascertain the real benefits and practical results of the British constitution, he would be content to see its character in admixture with the anomalous and the Local Laws of Hindostan, or contending with the difficul

ties of an unsettled colony in Upper Canada. No, but he would go to observe the difference between its theoretical pretensions and practical defects on the banks of the Thames, and keep as near St. Stephen's as he could-So, in this case, with the leave of our readers, we shall draw towards the confines of the Vatican, and note how the papal system works where its establishment is unquestioned and its machinery fully developed. And good reason have we to look thus for honest and unadulterated Popery in Italy. As Dr. M'Crie's able history of the Reformation in Italy has shewn, how popery having a more energetic working power in that country succeeded but too soon and too amply in purging off all the foreign admixture of Protestantism; therefore, if any one desires to know what the infallible, unchangeable church of Rome really is, in theory and in practice, in morals and in doctrine, he must not be satisfied with a portraiture of her as bending the mournfully graceful suppliant before the Parliament of Britain; but rather proceed to view her in her every-day working dress in Italy. And here we desire to observe, that there is no intention of charging the Roman Church with holding doctrines having a direct tendency to immorality, or degradation, or national misery, no more than we accuse Mahomet, or Confucius, or Zoroaster, of directly impugning the sanctions of civil society; but what we aver is, and we hold forth the accusations of history and experience to support us in the statement, that indirectly the peculiar doctrines of the Church of Rome have had an immoral and deteriorating result, and had we time or space to run down along them all, we confidently anticipate that we could produce good authority to prove how they all have had such deplorable effects. Let us in this place rest content with the exhibition of one doctrine merely, that of confession and penance: this doctrine of sacramental confession-" Which is (as the English Vicars Apostolic say) attended with such salutary effects, which is to be ever cherished as a most merciful and salutary institution."

Now taking this to be the case it may be well to look to Italy, and observe how this salutary Romish Prescript operates, and as we are fond of writers of the olden time, and moreover desire to shew that three hundred years ago the same causes produced the same effects, our readers are requested to bear patiently with the quaintness of a traveller in the days of good Queen Bess-Sir Edwin Sandys, son to the Archbishop of York:

"But to return to the Church of Rome, and to come to the consideration of their penance and confession, out of which so great good is promised to the world, and the want whereof is so much upbraided to their opposites: I must confesse, that surely in reason and very course of nature, this must needs bee a very great restraint to wickedness, a great means to bring men to integritie and perfection; when a man shall as it were dayly survey his actions and affections, censure with griefe, confesse with shame, cure by counsell, expiate with punishment, extinguish with firme intent never to return to the like againe, whatsoever hath defiled or stayned his soule. Neither doubt I but it had this fruict in the first institution, and hath VOL. VI. 3 A

also with many at this day; yea, and might have beene perhaps better restored in Reformed Churches to his primitive sinceritie, than utterly abolished, as in most. places it is. Notwithstanding, having diligently searched into the managing thereof in those parts, I finde, that as all things whereof humane imbecillitie hath the custodie and government, in time (decaying by unsensible degrees) fall away from their first perfection and puritie, and gather much soyle and drosse in using; so this as much as any thing.

"For this poinct of their religion, which in outward shew carrieth a face of severitie and discipline, is become of all other most remisse and pleasant, and of greatest content even to the dissolutest minds, the matter beeing growne with the common sort to this open reckoning; what need wee refraine so fearefully from sinne, God having provided so ready a meanes to bee rid of it when wee liste againe; yea, and the worser sort will say, when we have sinned wee must confesse, and when we have confessed we must sin againe, that wee may also confesse againe, and withall make worke for new indulgences and jubilies; making accompt of confession as professed drunkards vomiting; yea, I have knowne of those that carrie a shew of very devout persons, who by their owne report, to excuse their acquaintance in matters criminall, have wittingly perjured themselves in judgment; only presuming of this present and easie remedy of confession; and other of more than ordinary note among them, who, when their time of confessing was at hand, would then venture on those actions which before they trembled at; as presuming to surfeit by reason of neighbourhood with the physician; which physician also himselfe is perhaps more often infected by the noysome diseases which his patient discloseth, than the patient any way bettered by the counsell which the physician giveth; though this should be the very principall vertue of that act; but this must be granted to be the fault of the people, yet a generall fault it is.

"Howbeit, neither are the Priests or Pope to be more excused perhaps in their parts. The Priests will tell the penitent that God is mercifull-that what sinne soever a man committed, so long as hee continueth in the Church, and is not a Lutheran, there is good remedy for him-and for penance, it consisteth ordinarily, but in the maries, and pater nosters, with some easie almes to them that are able, and some little fasting to such as are willing: yea, I have knowne when the penance for horrible, and often blasphemie, besides much other leudnesse, hath beene no other than the bare saying of their beads thrice over; a matter of some houres muttering, and which in Italy they dispatch also as they goe in the streets, or rid businesse at home, making no other of it, than as it is, two lippes and one finger worke. But were the penance which the Priests enjoyne never so hard and sharp, the holy Fathers plenarie pardon sweeps all away at a blow. Now, of these they have graunted (and this man especially) so huge a number, that I weene there are few Churches of note in Italy which have not purchased or procured a perpetuall plenarie indulgence; by vertue whereof, whosoever at certaine set yearly dayes, being confest, and having communicated (or as in some pardons, having intent onely to confesse and communicate in time convenient) powres out his devotions before some altar in that Church, and extends his hands in almes to the behoose thereof, (which clause in all former graunts was expressed, but is now left out for avoyding of scandall, but still understood and practiced accordingly) hath forthwith free remission of all sinne and punishment: yea, if the worst fall out, that a man bee so negligent as to drop into purgatorie, at the time of his decease, (which but by very supine negligence can hardly happen:) yet few cities are there wherein there are not one or two altars priviledged pro defunctis-where for every masse said a soule is delivered; and so great multitude of Artizans must needs make their ware cheape.

I will not here warble long upon this untunable harsh string, neither will mention perhaps the fortieth part of what I have seene, much lesse will I now rake up old rustie stuff out of the dead dust and darknesse wherein time and shame hath suffered it to rest; onely for example sake, and for verifying of what I have said, I will set downe some of that which is in use at this day, which is printed on their Church doores and proclaimed in their pulpits."

Let us proceed a little further and see what this accurate observer says of the practical results of these doctrines :

"I must confesse, for my part, I am farre from their understanding who blaze so much that severitie of the Roman religion, unless wee accompt that a strict inclosure, which hath a multitude of posternes continually open to let false people in and out day and night at their pleasures, and rather incline to a contrary conceipt that presupposing the truth of their doctrine, as it is practised, for a man that were desirous to save his soule at his dying day, and yet denyed his body no wicked pleasure in his life-time, no such Church as that of Rome, no such country as Italy: for I must also speake somewhat of their life and conversation, but as briefly as may bee, being a theam I take very small delight to handle, neither being of any great profit to bee knowne. And yet, is it knowne sufficiently to all men, and too much to some, who, not content to spott themselves with all Italian impurities, proceed on to empoyson their country also at their returne thither: that we need not marveill if those rarer villanies which our ancestors never dreamed of, doe now grow frequent, and such men whom they would have swept out of the streets of their cities as the noysome disgrace and dishonour of them, and confined to a dungeon or other desolate place, doe vaunt themselves now, and with no mean applause, for the only gallants and worthy spirits of the world. But to touch so much of their lives in Italy as shall be necessarie for this purpose, and rather indeed the causes than the effects themselves, it is not to be marveiled at, if the glorie of their religion, consisting most in outward shews, and the exquisiteness in an infinity of intricate dumb ceremonies, if their devotions being not seasoned with understanding requisite, but prized more by tale than weight of zeale, if as the vertue of their sacraments, so their acts of puritie being placed more in the very massy materialitie of the outward worke, than in the puritie of the heart from which they proceed, it is not, I say, to be marveiled, though the fruicts also of conversation bee like unto those roots, rather such as yeild some reasonable outward obedience of laws, than approve the inward integritie and sinceritie of that fountain from which they issue. For although in their civill cariage one towards another, they haue especiall good vertues, well worth the imitating, being a people for the most part of a grave and stayed behaviour, very respective and courteous, not curious or medling in other mens matters, besides that ancient frugalitie in dyett and all other things not durable, which to their great ease and benefit they still retaine and there be also among them, as in all other places, some men of excellent and rare perfection, yet can it not bee disembled but that generally the whole country is strangely overflowne and overborne with wickednesse, with filthinesse of speach, with beastlinesse of actions, both governors and subjects, both priests and friars, each striving, as it were with other, in an impudentnesse therein even so farre forth that what elsewhere would not bee tolerated, is there in high honour-what in some places even a loose person would be ashamed to confesse, there priests and friers refrain not openly to practise; yea if any man forbeare the like, they find it very strange, and hold integritie for little better than sillinesse or abjectnesse. I cannot here forget the saying of an Italian gentleman of very good qualitie but in faction Spanish, at

my first entry into Italy, namely, that the Italians were excellent men but for three faults they had; in their lusts they were unnatural, their malice was unappeasable, and they deceived the whole world; whereto as for rare corollaries in those faculties, he might have truely added, they spend more upon others than upon themselves, they blaspheme oftener than sweare, and murther more than they revile or slaunder."-Sandys' Europa Speculum, p. 10,

Such was the state of Italy under the operation of these salutary doctrines near three hundred years ago; about half a century after we find Bishop Hall drawing a picture just as dark.

"The Searcher of all hearts, (before whose tribunal I shall once come, to give an account of this censure) knows that I speak it not maliciously, Him I call to witness, that I could not find any true life of religion amongst those that would be Catholics. I meddle not with the errors of speculations, or school-points, wherein their judgment palpably offendetb: I speak of the lively practice of piety. What have they amongst them but a very outside of Christianity, a mere formality of devotion? Looke into their Churches, there their poore ignorant laity hope to present their best services to God; and yet, alas, they say they know not what; they heare they know not what; they doe they know not what; returning empty of all hearty edification, and onely full of confused intentions; and are taught to thinke this sacrifice of fooles meritorious. Looke to their chemerims upon the sacred actors in this religious scene; what shall you see but idle apishnesse in their solemnest worke, and either mockery or slumbering? Looke into their religious houses; what shall you see but a trade of carelesse and lazy holines? Houres observed, because they must, not because they would. What doe they but lull piety asleepe with their heartlesse and sleepy vespers? Looke into the private closets of their devout ignorant; what difference sball you see betwixt the image and the suppliant? If they can heare their beades knocke upon each other, they are not bid to care for hearing their praises reflect vpon heaven. Shortly, in all that belongs to God, the worke done sufficeth, yea meriteth, and what need the heart be wrought vpon for a taske of the band? Looke into the melancholike cells of some austere recluses; there you may finde perhaps an haire-cloth, or a whip, or a heardle; but shew mee true mortification, the power of spiritual renovation of the soule; how should that bee found there, when as that saving faithe (which is the onely purger of the heart) is barred out as presumptuous, and no guest of that kinde allowed, but the same which is common to Devils. What Papist in all Christendome hath euer been heard to pray with his family, or to sing but a psalm at home? Looke into the vniversall course of the Catholike life; there shall you finde the Decalogue professedly broken, besides the ordinary practice of idolatry, and frequence of oathes. Who euer saw God's day duly kept in any city, village, household vnder the iurisdiction of Rome? Every obscure holy-day takes the wall of it, and thrusts it into the channell. Who sees not obedience to authority so slighted, that it stands only to the mercy of humane dispensation? And in the rest of God's laws, who sees not how foule sinnes passe for veniall? And how easily veniall sinues passe their satisfaction: for which a crosse, or a drop of holy water is sufficient amends? Who sees not how no place can bee left for truth, where there is full roome given for equivocation? All this, though it be harsh to the conscionable reader, yet is no lesse pleasing to the carnall."-Bishop Hall's censure of travel, p. 704.

Had we space we could come down another century and pro