work of a MIRACLE, the basis on which geologists build their theory makes the earth the sole work of NATURE. It has come to its present maturity, as they suppose, by mere chemical and natural changes. All that they will allow that God created, properly speaking, is a gaseous substance-or a kind of fiery atmosphere, which at length consolidated into the present world. Buffon thinks that the earth was a fragment originally struck from the sun!! and at length assumed its present form.

But let us seriously ask the philosopher what he gains by even such an admission on our part. If geologists allow that God created even a gaseous substance, they meet with every important difficulty that would be found, if they admitted that God created, in six natural days, the present earth. Could they find the elements of a gaseous substance, they would see all the evidence of periods that they now see; and were they to allow time for nature to form those elements, they would find the same necessity for interminable years that they now do.

But we ask serious-minded men, if the Bible does not universally represent the creation of. the world as the result of a miracle? Does not the whole tenor of Revelation point to such a conclusion? And does it not say expressly that "the worlds that were framed

were NOT made of things which do APPEAR?" And was not this remark designed to strike against the peripatetic philosophy, (or doctrine of Aristotle,) which taught that it was created out of pre-existing matter? or rather, which assumed that the world was eternal? We confess it appears to us that the Scriptures teach the miraculous creation of the earth. And if this be true, it was not done by the slow process of nature. God spoke, and it was done ;— He commanded, and it stood fast. How infinitely sublime such a thought! But how meagre the thought, that first a gaseous substance was seen floating about in the heavens, intensely heated, which finally consolidated, became a heated mineral ball of fire, which afterward cooled and then oxidated, till we had a crust of the earth! A salt sea sprung up! and then some animals, which were destroyed by some terrible convulsion of nature-and finally, after an interminable length of years, it became the abode of man-who, by the way, presents as many incontestable evidences of periodic formation, as any rock in the universe. And do geologists pretend to believe that the first man was formed as slowly as the first rock? And yet why not? Could a geologist find a bone of Adam, he would see evidence that that bone was twenty or a hundred years in making. And yet God made it mature in a moment. The same reasoning would hold good with regard to the first tree. Could we find that tree, it would give evidence of periodic formation. So also would the first animals.—But if we allow that God created the first tree, the first man, the first animals, exhibiting the same phenomena that appear in animals and trees formed by the slower process of nature, why can we not admit the same reasoning in reference to a rock, and the formation of the earth? If we allow only that God made the seeds from which trees sprung, it presents nearly all the difficulties that can be found in the earth's present structure. A philosopher would tell us of a seed, that it was so many months arriving at its present maturity; and if it were a

common seed, his reasoning would be true; but if it were the first seed made, there would be no truth in his philosophy. Thus of geology.

We have another difficulty. If the earth, was formed by the slow degrees contended for by geologists, it is probable that the Moonwas formed in the same way; the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, These Vesta, with the other planets, indeed all the fixed stars! were all commenced with gaseous vapors! But where is the proof? Do we see such changes now in the heavens as would authorize such a belief? Indeed we do not. Besides, what gave to the earth its nice balance, what gave to the universe this?-He who said, LET THERE BE LIGHT, AND IT WAS;-was, in the twinkling of an eye.

ART. IX.-CHARACTER AND TENDENCIES OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION.

BY W. FISK, D. D.

MESSRS. EDITORS, Having given an account in the preceding letters of the more prominent ceremonies of the Catholic Church, it may not be unprofitable, in the present letter, to make some reflections upon the character and tendencies of the Catholic religion. This is a subject that is at this moment attracting to itself intense interest, and especially in the United States. The time having passed by, we hope for ever, in which the advocates of this religion can, as formerly, enforce their dogmas by the sword and by the authority of the secular power, they now find it necessary to try the strength of the question on moral grounds. This is a posi tion to which the opposers of Romanism have long wished to press the question, and they have partially succeeded; and in the United States particularly the question presents itself exclusively upon this ground. As in the despotisms of Europe the old ground of propagation is abandoned, the experiment is now to be tried whether the sentiment can prevail in a country of free discussion. Here, and on these principles, we ought to be prepared to meet it. Let us then examine some of its claims and tendencies by what we see and know of its character. For Romanism, to be known and judged of, must be seen and scrutinized where no motives of policy force it into unnatural positions or concealments. In short, in Italy and in Rome itself this system can best be tested. Against this Catholics cannot object, for if, as they teach, Christianity has a grand central capital, and that is Rome-if it has one single head on earth to whom, as the vicegerent of Christ, the keys of the kingdom of God have been committed, and the pope is that head-then here certainly, under the influence of the pontifical court, and under the very droppings of the pope's sanctuary, we may hope to find concentrated all the excellences of this church. Here, if anywhere, impurities will be discarded and abuses discountenanced.

ROMANISM HAS A STRONG AND DIRECT TENDENCY TO IDOLATRY.

I will not say that a Roman Catholic must necessarily be guilty of idolatry; nor will I now argue from the fact that the Catholics

have left out the second commandment from many of their editions of the commandments, because it speaks so directly against their image worship,-which seems to be a tacit acknowledgment by themselves that they must, if judged by the light of Scripture, be convicted of idolatry.

Neither will I now insist upon the glaring idolatry of worshipping a wafer in the form of a consecrated host, because if a Catholic can really believe that this wafer is converted into a God, as some of them perhaps do, he does not worship the thing that is, but the thing which he believes it to be; and, therefore, he may even in this worship be held in the sight of God innocent of idolatry. But whatever some of strong faith, or, more properly, of irrational credulity, may believe on this subject, there are many, doubtless, who are led into this worship, following the example of others who, as the apostle expresses himself on a somewhat analogous subject, "with conscience to the idol unto this hour" bow down to it as to what their senses tell them it really is, a portion of matter, and yet a portion of matter which, like the gree-gree or the amulet, has some peculiar charm and talismanic virtue, and thus their “ consciences are defiled," and their minds are sensualized. Indeed every one, it appears to me, who attempts to believe in transubstantiation lays a snare for his conscience; and the church which inculcates this doctrine lays a broad foundation for materialism. And this the Catholics do, not merely in this doctrine, but in their veneration for relics. Rome and all Italy is full of sacred relics: they are considered as possessing in themselves peculiar virtue. Here are stones that sweat blood-here are martyrs' bones that raise the dead, and pieces of the cross, and scourges, and pillars of stone, and holy staircases, and a thousand things which have wrought more miracles than were ever wrought by Christ or his apostles.

When an ignorant African pagan talks about the virtue of his gree-gree, and relies upon it for his protection, we call him an idolater, and so he is. But is he more so than the Catholic who believes in the virtue of his crucifix or other trinket, because it has been blessed by the pope, or because it has been shaken in the porringer which, as is pretended, contained the pap from which the holy child Jesus was fed?

But another soure of idolatry is the numerous subordinate mediators that enter into the machinery of the Catholic religion. In my former letter an instance is given in a very solemn and imposing service, performed by the pope himself, in which pardon was supplicated through the merits of saints. Angels are prayed to. Saints, male and female, are prayed to, and especially and above all the blessed Virgin is an object of universal veneration and worship. It is in vain for Catholics to plead that they only solicit the aid of these personages to present their suit to God; for, in the first place, many of the prayers are direct, and imply that these saints have power in themselves to give the necessary aid. Besides, the very idea that the Virgin, or that the angel Gabriel, or St. Peter can hear the prayers of Catholics, praying, as they do, in different and distant parts of the world, clothes these saints, in the opinion of the worshippers, with omnipresence-one of the attributes of the Deity. Nay, to show that many of the people do directly worship

these saints and the blessed Virgin, this one fact is sufficient, that they will sooner swear by the name of Jesus Christ, or of God the Father, than by the name of the Virgin. Hence it appears, that they either consider it greater blasphemy to profane the name of the Virgin than that of God, or else they think she stands in a more intimate relation to them, and has it in her power to avenge any insult offered to her. If the latter be the idea, as perhaps in many instances it is, even this shows that they consider the Virgin as every where present to take cognizance of their insults to her character, and as having power, either directly or indirectly, of dispensing blessings and curses. That this is the idea of the greater portion of the people of Italy, there can be no doubt. No man can travel through Italy without noticing that the great whole of the worship of Italy is the worship of the Virgin. If there is one shrine in any of the churches more popular than another, it is, as a general thing, that of the Virgin. Nay, it is worse than this. The strongest features in the idolatry of the Catholics are not in the worship of the saints, but in the worship of images and pictures. The image of a saint is more worshipped than the saint himself—the picture of the Madonna more than the Virgin in heaven. It is said by Catholics that these images are designed only as helps to fix the attention; but, whatever may have been their design originally, it is notorious that they are now actually worshipped, and this some Catholics are candid enough to own. This the priests countenance. I have seen a priest himself praying to an image of the Virgin. They carry around the images in procession, and encourage the people in times of calamity to try different Madonnas, because some have more virtue than others. Nay, the devotees of different cities and churches claim superior power and merit for their respective Madonnas. The inhabitants of Pisa, for example, the summer before we were there, attributed their escape from the cholera, while it raged most fearfully and fatally at Leghorn, less than twelve miles from them in a straight line, to the superior virtue of their Madonna. All these facts, and a thousand others that might be mentioned, show that it is not the Virgin in heaven, but this or that particular image or picture that is supposed to have the virtue and the power of saving and blessing. They are taught this, or why is it so prevalent? Is it not taught by the example of the pope himself when he worships the cross, when he bows down before the relics at St. Veronica's shrine? when he goes, as he did on holy week, to the bronze image of St. Peter in the church of St. Peter's, and kisses it, and rubs his face against it, and kneels before it? Nay, is not this countenanced in the very homage paid to the pope himself, before whom the prelates and people prostrate themselves as to a god? If a system had been formed for the express purpose of calling off the attention of the people from the Creator to the creature, from things spiritual to things material, could any thing more appropriate to the object have been formed? What feature is there in the entire system of the most splendid and fascinating forms of pagan idolatry, that is not equalled or excelled by the various parts of the Roman Catholic machinery? While the institutions of the Saviour were few, simple, and the very opposite of any thing like external show or parade, for the express purpose of

turning the mind from sensible objects to God who is a spirit, the entire system of Catholic forms and rites, is formed to dazzle the senses and captivate the imagination. What else than an extended and an abundant harvest of sensuality, materialism, and idolatry could we expect from such a religion? And what might be expected is seen in staring capitals throughout the country-Stark glaring idolatry prevails in every direction. They have become vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart is darkened, and they have "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man."

And, what is worst of all in this and every other unholy feature of Roman Catholicism, they cannot alter without destroying the only claim of that church by which she enforces her authority— her infallibility. Wherever infallibility is supposed to exist, whether in the pope, in general councils, in tradition, or in all these, it is evident that all have united to sanction these idolatrous features of their religion. The very moment, therefore, that these usages are forbidden, the groundwork of the whole system must fall—Infallibility will be arrayed against itself, and when once this charm is broken, the whole system is laid open to investigation-the decrees of popes and councils, which have been venerated for centuries, are brought into discussion, and the entire system will crumble to the dust. It is only by crying, procul, O procul este profani,—let not the unbelieving presume for a moment to question our authority,—that her Catholics can keep their system in countenance. Hence this church has entailed upon herself the errors and abuses that corrupt her whole system, by incorporating those errors into her very framework, and making them an integral part of her very identity. There is no removing one of them without removing the very substratum in which they all inhere, and thereby unsettling and dis solving all its constituent parts.

Before dismissing this objection to Romanism, I cannot persuade myself to omit noticing with decided disapprobation the views of Rev. Mr. Dewey, who, under the title of the "Old World and the New," has lately given to the public the result of some of his observations in Europe. He approves of images and paintings in churches, and of many of the forms, ceremonies, and festivals of the Catholic Church, and expresses a wish that similar practices might be introduced into our own country, and into Protestant churches. I know not whether his Unitarian brethren will generally respond to his sentiments, but if they should, it might solve what has been unaccountable to many in America, viz. the favor which they as a religious sect have manifested toward the introduction and spread of Roman Catholicism in the United States. For myself, I have generally accounted for it on the principle that they are stanch advocates for free discussion, and liberty of religious opinion. They have seen that there has been the appearance of something like an intolerant spirit toward the Catholics, and this, as I have supposed, has led them to enlist their sympathies and influence in their favor. But Mr. Dewey's book has, I confess,-and I express my opinion with the greatest kindness, although I do it with all frankness,-led me to fear that there are between the two religions some points of harmony and coincidence, which may have been overlooked hitherto