there are not less in this country than seven colleges, twenty-three schools or academies, and seventeen establishments of nuns ; to have their chapels, free of resort, and their religious publications issue free from the press, and to be distributed without restriction; all which has been done within a few years? What more could have been done to facilitate

passages which are against the doctrines of Rome; and an index of these expurgations, as they are called, has been published. This is certainly one way of making them unanimous, but not very consistent with a love of truth, though it satisfy the Doctors of Maynooth, and is sanctioned by the council of Trent.

It may well make a Protestant's heart ache to think, that, whilst such a seminary of error has found such strenuous support and ample endowment, the Episcopalian Bishops and Clergy of Scotland are obliged to solicit prinate subscriptions to make out a bare provision. This is not, and it cannot come to, good.

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And here it may not be improper to notice a curious circum stance relative to the money solicited from Parliament last year its support. The sum proposed for it was £1,300; and that for the Protestant Society for the Promotion of Religion and Virtue, proposed at the same time, was just £50 less. Whence then this difference, so nicely marked? Without scrutinizing the motives of this difference, it shall suffice to bring to the reader's recollec tion a circumstance that took place at Vienna, when the late Pope paid a visit to that city. When preparations were making for the Pope to appear at Mass, as the Emperor was also to be present, a difficulty arose as to the comparative elevation of the thrones of the Emperor and the Pope; and as Braschi insisted on some, though ever so small, a superiority in this respect, the thrones were prepared so, that the Pope's was about three inches higher than that of the Emperor. But, when the Pope went to church, he found that the Emperor had had the good sense to decline being present, and to order the throne intended for his Imperial Majesty to be removed.

its growth, it is not easy to imagine. To the ignorant among the Protestants there may be some danger from these, but it is to such only. Surely it may be hoped that the unfounded and absurd doctrine of transubstantiation will not, in this enlightened age, as it is called, long disgrace a church that calls itself. Christian, and that the Roman Catholics may be emancipated from their spiritual bondage. The Concordat has done something; and perhaps, in the present state of political knowledge, that church may find it expedient to expound her definition of absolution so far, as that no fanatic may presume upon it as a sanction to one of the worst evils that any individual, or any state, can fear.

Whether, by the late concessions to the Roman Catholics, "the bonds of charity have been drawn closer," it is too early perhaps to determine. That they may have been, and be so, is devoutly to be wished.

The Hon. Author observes, that "There is, in Englishmen, a horror of the thing called Popery (which, by the bye, we have disclaimed), nourished by all the habits of education, which no efforts on our side, and, in the best-disposed minds, no suggestion of reason, can effectually remove. The clergy of the establishment, I am told, have sedulously watered this plant, seemingly not aware, that a strong cause, such as theirs has long been, stands in need of no such support."

That men should have a horror of doctrines which they not only conceive, but have by experience found, to tend to the subversion of their religious and political establishments, and that they should not be pre

cipitate in admitting the force of representations not easily reconciled either with past experience, doctrines still maintained, or views extended beyond them, is as natural as it is a prudence of necessity. A truly religious man must feel a horror of doctrines of Paganism taught as doctrines of the Scriptures; and others, directly opposite to those of Scripture and the primitive church, taught as Christianity. How far Popery is disclaimed by the Roman Catholics of these kingdoms depends upon the definition of the word Popery itself.

That which, in propriety of language, constitutes Popery, is, even from the word itself, evidently in its original sense, an adherence to the Pope, whether in his temporal or spiritual capacity. And in its legal and proper acceptation it is, I believe, used to signify acknowledgment of the spiritual power assumed by the Pope over the Romish church, as supreme; and an adherence to the peculiar doctrines of the church, which acknowledges him as its head.

. Hence, therefore, it follows, that though a few exceptionable doctrines be disclaimed, this is not a disclaiming of Popery itself, but of a part of what is included under the name. To have given up the doctrines of the infallibility of the Pope, and deposition of Sovereigns, is no more than what the Gallican church had done before. To have given up that of extermination of those who differ from 'them, whether for political or merely benevolent reasons, is what France itself did at last, and too late; and what many good men of that church had abhorred; though they acknowledged the spiritual supremacy of the Pope,

and the doctrines of the Romish church, as true. And possibly the signal manner in which Divine Providence has poured out the vial of retributive wrath on the church of France, during the Revolution, may be an awful and salutary warning to it to abstain from such attempts in future.

The horror, then, which Englishmen feel, may still justly prevail, unless the dangers to the church or state are sufficiently obviated. Whether any suggestions of reason, strong enough, upon rational principles, to remove their apprehensions, have been offered to them, may be liable to very different decisions from those who wish to impress them as such, and those to whom they are addressed; especially where their interests are concerned. The ardour to convince may also overrate the power; and professions, however sincere, if of a kind that is novel from the body that makes them; and, still more, if there be supposed any other principle in that body, which may overturn them, will not be received with the same facility as they would otherwise have been. The peculiar religious doctrines of the church of Rome are such as every Protestant, of whatever denomination, must consider as unscriptural, superstitious, and dangerous to the salvation of souls; and it is therefore much to the credit of the clergy of the church of England, in gene ral, and more particularly to that of the two Universities, that their zeal has called forth an acknowledgment of it.

By what species of allowed logical argument the present constituent members of the University of Oxford are to be inculpated for the conduct of their

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predecessors, when they do not imitate it, the most acute logician might be at some difficulty to ascertain. It is true that they dwell within the same walls, and walk the same streets, as they did, who are said to have drank Jacobite toasts; and as they also did who burned Ridley and Cranmer. If the argument has any weight, they may as well be reproached with the latter as the former circumstance. Possibly the argument may have been advanced.as a counterpoise to that objected to the Roman Catholics, of violence and extravagancies of their church some years ago. But if so, the analogy is defective. In the Romish church, the principle of the evils, though perhaps somewhat abated of its force, subsists. In Oxford it subsists no more, and she may be proud of the manner in which she came forward to oppose an inroad on church and state; and Cambridge, much to her honour, has done the same.

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It is asked, "Do these gentlemen" (viz. of Oxford) never recall to their memories the founders of those noble fabrics, which arrest the attention of the man of taste, and of the reflecting scholar, by whom they were so magnificently endowed? Was it not my own, I could not censure the religion of such men."

I believe it is but doing simple justice to the gentlemen of Oxford to say, that they feel every just sentiment of gratitude and respect to the memory of the pious founders of their University, and think with more pity for, than censure of, their errors, because of the darkness of the age in which they lived. But is an error not to be censured, because a great or good man otherwise has been subject to it? If so, then