DIALOGUE I.

Containing an Account of the Author; how the Errors of the Roman Catholic Church made him an Infidel; and how, to avoid her Tyranny, he came to England, where the knowledge of the Protestant Religion made him again embrace Christianity.

Reader. WELL, Sir, since you are pleased to wish for a conversation with me, may I make bold to ask who you are?

Author. By all means, my good friend. The truth is, that, unless you know who I am, and bý what strange and unforeseen events I happen to be here, our conversation would be to little purpose. You must, then, know, in the first place, that I am a Spaniard, and have been regularly bred and ordained a Catholic Priest.

R. Indeed, Sir! Perhaps you are one of those poor creatures, who, I hear, have been driven out of Spain, for having tried to give it a better govern

ment.

A. No, my friend: I have been now (1825) more than fifteen years in England, and came hither of my own accord, though I left behind every thing that was most dear to me, besides very good preferment in the Church, and the prospect of rising to higher places of honour and emolument.

R. Why, Sir! that appears strange.

A. So it must to those who are not acquainted with the evil from which I resolved to escape, at the expence of every thing I possessed in the world. You, my dear friend, have had your lot cast in a country which is perfectly free from religious tyranny. Were it possible for you to have been born in Spain, and yet to possess the free spirit of

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Briton, you would not wonder at the determination which made me quit parents, kindred, friends, wealth, and country, and cast myself upon the world at large, at the age of five and thirty, trusting to my own exertions for a maintenance. All this I did merely to escape from religious tyranny.

R. You quite surprise me, Sir! But I wish you would tell me what it is you mean by that religious tyranny, which you seem to have feared and hated so strongly.

A. You will easily understand it as I proceed with the story of my own life. I was born of gentle parents, and brought up with great care and tenderness. My father's family were Irish, and the English language being spoken by him and many of his dependants, I learned it, when a boy; and thanks to that circumstance, which I consider as a means employed by Providence for my future good, I can now thus freely converse with you. Both my father and mother were Roman Catholics, extremely pious from their youth, and devoted to works of charity and piety during the whole course of their lives. It was natural that such good parents should educate their children in the most religious manner; and they spared themselves no pains to make me a good Roman Catholic. My disposition was not wayward; and I grew up strongly attached to the sort of religion which was instilled into my mind. I had scarcely arrived at my fourteenth year, when, believing that the life in which I could most please God was that of a Clergyman, I asked my parents to prepare me for the Church; which they agreed to, with great joy. I passed many years at the university, took my degrees, and, at the age of five and twenty, was made a Priest. It is the custom in Spain, when certain places become vacant in Cathedrals, and other great Churches, to invite as many Clergymen as will allow themselves to be examined, before the public, to stand candidates for

the vacancy. After the trial of their learning, the judges appointed by law, give the place to him whom they believe to be most competent.-I should be ashamed to boast, but so it happened, that, soon after my becoming a Priest, I was made one of the Chaplains of the King of Spain, in the way I have just told you. All had been, hitherto, well enough with me; and I thank God that the ease and good fortune which had always attended me, did not make me forget my duties as a Clergyman.-Doubts, however, had occurred to me now and then, as to whether the Roman Catholic Religion was true. My fear of doing wrong by listening to them, made me hush them for a long time; but all my peace of mind was gone. In vain did I kneel and pray the doubts would multiply upon me, disturbing all my devotions. Thus I struggled month after month, till unable to answer the objections that continually occurred to me, I renounced the Roman Catholic Religion in my heart.

R. In your heart, Sir! I hope you do not mean that when you had settled with yourself that the Popish Religion was false, you pretended still to be a Roman Catholic.

A. What would you think of a power, or au thority, that would force you to act like a hypocrite?

R. I should think that it was no better than the government of, the Turks, which, as I hear, treats men like beasts.

A. Well; now you will be able to understand what I mean by religious tyranny. The Popes of Rome believe that they have a right to oblige all men who have been baptized, but more especially those who have been baptized by their Priests, to continue Roman Catholics to their lives' end. Whenever any one living under their authority, has ventured to deny any of the doctrines which the Church of Rome believes, they have shut them up in prisons, tormented them upon the rack, and, if they

would not recant, and unsay what they had given out as their real persuasion, the poor wretches have been burnt as heretics. The kings of Spain, being Catholics, acted upon these matters according to the will of the Pope; and, in order to prevent every Spaniard from being any thing, at least in appearance, but a Papist, had established a court called the Inquisition, where a certain number of Priests tried, in secret, such people as were accused of having denied any of the articles of the Roman Catholic faith. Whenever, moved by fear of the consequences, the prisoner chose to eat his own words, and declare that he was wrong; the Priests sent him to do penance for a certain time, or laid a heavy fine upon him: but, if the accused had courage to persist in his own opinion, then the Priests declared that he was a heretic, and gave him up to the public executioner, to be burnt alive.

R. Good heaven! you quite astonish me. Have you ever seen such doings, Sir?

A. I well remember the last that was burnt for being a heretic, in my own town, which is called Seville. It was a poor blind woman. I was then about eight years old, and saw the pile of wood, upon barrels of pitch and tar, where she was reduced to ashes.

R. But are there many who venture their lives for the sake of what they believe to be the true Gospel?

A. Alas! there was a time, when many hundreds of men and women sacrificed themselves for the love of the Protestant Religion which is professed in England. But the horrible cruelties which were practised upon them, disheartened all those who were disposed to throw off the yoke of the Pope; and now people disguise their religious opinions, in order to avoid the most horrible persecution.

R. And you, Sir, of course, were obliged to dis guise your own persuasion, in order not to lose your liberty and your life.

A. Just so. I lived ten years in the most wretched and distressed state of mind. Nothing was wanting to my being happy but the liberty of declaring my opinions; but that is impossible for a Roman Catholic, who lives under the laws which the Popes have induced most of the Roman Catholic princes to establish in their kingdoms. I could not say, as a Roman Catholie may, under the government of Great Britain and Ireland, "I will no longer be a spiritual subject of the Pope: I will worship God as my conscience tells me I should, and according to what I find in the Bible." No: had I said so, or even much less; had any words escaped me, in conversa tion, from which it might be suspected that I did not believe exactly what the Pope commands, I should have been taken out of my bed in the middle of the night, and carried to one of the prisons of the Inquisition. Often, indeed, very often have I passed a restless night under the apprehension that, in consequence of some unguarded words, my house would be assailed by the ministers of the Inquisition, and I should be hurried away in the black carriage, which they used for conveying dissenters to their dungeons. Happy indeed are the people of these kingdoms, where every man's house is his castle; and where, provided he has not committed some real crime, he may sleep under the protection of a mere latch to his door, as if he dwelt in a walled and moated fortress! No such feeling of safety can be enjoyed where the tyranny of Popery prevails. A Roman Catholic, who is not protected by Protestant laws, is all over the world a slave, who cannot utter a word against the opinions of his Church, but at his peril. "The very walls have ears," is a common saying in my country. A man is indeed beset with spies; for the Church of Rome has contrived to employ every one as such, against his nearest and dearest relations. Every year there is publicly read at Church, a proclamation, or (as they call it) a bull from the Pope,