gave in the former year £750; whereas in 1858 we gave no less a sum than £7229-that is, the sum paid in the latter year was nearly ten times greater than that paid in the former year; so prodigious is the growth of the grants. Equally rapid and startling has been the increase in the grants to Popish schools. The sum is already portentously large (in Great Britain £36,000; in Ireland £100,000 in round numbers), and has by no means reached its limit. It is larger this year than it was the last; it will be larger the year after than it is this year; and the year after that it will be larger still. In short, limits to its increase there are none. Popish avariciousness will continue to beg, and Protestant indifferentism will continue to give.

We call on all to ponder these facts. We call on every man who thinks that the Revolution of 1688 was a blessing, and that the rights and privileges it conferred on the nation ought to be maintained, to ponder these facts. They will show him that what was done then is in course of being undone; that the victory it cost us so long a struggle to win, is being insidiously snatched from us; that our rights are being frittered away; and that a course has been entered upon which can have no other termination than that of national humiliation and disaster. We call on every man who values his Protestantism, and regards it as the palladium of our liberties and the source of all that ennobles our country, to ponder these facts. They exhibit a line of policy which goes to the overthrow of the Constitution of the country, the destruction of its liberties, and the demoralization of its people.

It is

We protest against this policy as UNconstitutional. directly in the face of the fundamental principle which we solemnly adopted as a nation at the Revolution. That principle was that the Constitution should be Protestant. What did that mean as a political dogma? It meant that the Pope was not to have jurisdiction or power in the country. And we accordingly proceeded to bring into harmony with this principle the framework of our Government. We declared that no one but a Protestant could occupy our throne, and that no one but a Protestant should have the making of our laws. The Nonconformists of this country have abetted the change in the Constitution which annulled the latter disability, on the ground which they have ever maintained, that no religious opinions should interfere with the enjoyment of political rights. But while, on this broad ground, and in honour of a principle which is most sacred to them, they have thus, in recent years, contended honestly for their Romanist fellow countrymen, they must now protest, when they find the public money, of which they do not partake, lavished so abundantly

upon the establishment of a system which they conceive to be not only a portentous religious falsehood, but a political curse. The Nonconformists number more than half the population of Great Britain, and they demand to know why privileges should be conferred, and money given, to this religious body, whose principles are so hostile to the free institutions of our country, while they neither ask nor receive such honours, or subsidy, in support of their churches? Why should their money be nefariously appropriated to uphold a creed which they believe to be damnable in its delusions and obnoxious to their own and the country's interests? They object to the support of one religious establishment, as an injustice not only to themselves, but to that truth which it professes to conserve. Now, they are urged by every recollection of their history, and every principle of their faith, to arouse themselves to uproot the young and malignant sapling which threatens, with such prodigious growth, to overshadow the land with a most deadly umbrage; and protect their country not from a second religious establishment, but from a second establishment which will establish irreligion and idolatry in its subtlest and its strongest form. If they have fought with Roman Catholics, though detesting their religion, for their political liberty, they must now, and with most decisive vigour, fight against them on behalf of their own. Will they endure another burden in support of others' creeds, especially the Papists'? Is their magnanimity so great, or their spirit so supine?

The evil principle involved in the establishment of religion is now brought into most painful prominence, and we trust will be seen by many who hitherto have been blind to it. It is argued, if soldiers must have religious instruction and consolation, the Catholic soldiers must have it from their own priests; and, therefore, the Government must send and pay them. So of our jails; and now the cry is likewise raised for our workhouses. It is that deduction "therefore" which Nonconformists pronounce a "non sequitur," and demand that it shall not be put into force; and, where it has been, that it shall be rescinded as wrong in logic and fatal in policy. For any dullard may see that, by this reasoning, you must support lamas for your Buddhist, and gurus for your Brahmin soldiers; and if the Government provide religious instruction and consolation for those in jails, workhouses, reformatories, &c., according to the peculiar persuasion of each individual, a mighty host of spiritual directors will be required!

While, however, this general question of establishments is in debate, Nonconformists may render illustrious service to their country, as they have done before, and save the constitution from the plague of a Romish establishment, by requiring that the Catholics be treated as themselves, and refusing to bear fresh

burdens of taxation for subsidies to them, which they scorn to receive.

There is one lesson, great above most others, which the Reformation teaches, in connection with the very question we are discussing. A glance over the Europe of three centuries ago shows us that to whatever height the Reformation attained in any of its countries, if it did not carry the governing power with it, it failed to render itself permanent. Of this France is a striking illustration. At one period, the one-half, if not the majority of the nation, was on the side of the Reformation; but it failed to carry the throne with it, and so France fell back again into Popery. Britain is a not less striking illustration on the other side. We were never able to make the Reformation stable and permanent in this country till the reigning family had become really Protestant. The Court and the Parliament evinced an incurable tendency to lapse in Romanism, and did so on more than one occasion, dragging the nation back with them. It cost us a struggle of 150 years to reform the throne, and we were able to do this only at the Revolution. Since the Revolution, the Reformation has been stable in Britain. But now we begin to discover strong symptoms of a disposition to lapse back into Romanism; and why? because the governing power has changed its policy. Though from very different causes, it is substantially the policy of JAMES. It is the very same anti-national, time-serving, truckling course which landed the country in all the humiliations, disasters, and disgrace, from which we were happily rescued by the opportune appearance of the Prince of Orange on our shores. The same course will to a certainty conduct to the same issue.

We protest against this course as fitted to forfeit the favour of Heaven. What an ennobling spectacle do the Protestant nations exhibit, as contrasted with the Popish States of Europe; and especially Britain, the head of the Reformation, as compared with continental countries. Blessed with peace, enriched with commerce, adorned with art and industry, the abode of liberty and letters, and crowned with social and domestic virtue, our country rises a sublime monument, in the midst of the earth, of the value of Protestantism; while Italy and other Popish lands, ravaged by war, torn by faction, scourged by ignorance and vice, and a prey to all the evils of beggary and slavery, lift an equally emphatic protest in the face of the world against the Papacy. Shall we reject that with which God has so visibly connected his blessing, and shall we choose that which he has so visibly and awfully branded with his curse? What, in that case, can we expect but that we shall be forsaken of Heaven?

We protest against the policy, which the facts we have stated

indicate, because it is demoralizing the country. There can be no dispute here that Popery is false. We as a nation (our statesmen included) profess to believe that Popery is idolatry. But can that which is false benefit anyone? The plea of our rulers is that it can, and that therefore they are justified in giving annually £200,000 to have it taught throughout the nation. We say nothing here of the innate absurdity of believing in the efficacy of falsehood; we simply deny their assertion. We say Popery cannot possibly benefit any human being. Nay, its effect is destructive: and, in proof, we appeal to the state of every nation where it exists, and to the state of our own nation, to the extent to which it exists. It is a wrong done the Papist. Let him, if he likes, support his own religion, but let us not volunteer to uphold for him a religion which we believe robs him of truth and sinks him into a condition of mental slavery and social degradation. It is a wrong done the Protestant; because it burdens him with taxes demanded by the very poverty and crime the Popery propagated by the State has caused. The £200,000 annually given by our Government in support of Popery is not only wasted, it is accomplishing great positive mischief. It is lowering the intelligence of the country, deteriorating its morals, weakening its industry, and endangering its peace. We protest against their policy as a gross and monstrous perversion of the very first end of their office, which is to diffuse through the nation what is true and wholesome, not what is false and noxious.

We call on every lover of his country to bestir himself. The matter is urgent: the evil is great. It is growing from one day to another, and from one year to another. It will be more diffi

cult to remedy to-morrow than it is to-day: and more difficult the day after to remedy than to-morrow. We shall have more Popish colleges endowed, more Popish chaplains appointed: we shall soon see a priest in every ship of war, a chaplain in every regiment of the line, and in whose hands will the power of the army and navy then be? We shall soon see the Popish church established in Ireland, and the Act of Settlement set aside, preparatory to a Popish Advent, provided the country keep quiet. "A little further, and then we shall stop," say the Government. So have they said from the beginning. What a delusion! The attempt they are now making is as foolish as it is criminal. They are attempting to satisfy an avariciousness that is literally insatiable, and gratify a lust for power that will never be content till it results in full and uncontrolled dominion. What the Papist wants is Britain: not a part of it, but the whole. He wants the sovereignty of the Queen, that he may give it to his Holy Father, the Pope he wants the revenues of our religious establishments,

that he may give them to his bishops: he wants the estates of our nobles that he may endow therewith his monasteries and convents: he wants our Magna Charta, that he may make a bonfire of it.

II.

THE ROMAN QUESTION.

La Question Romaine. Par E. About. Bruxelles: Melines, Cans et Cie., Libraires-Editeurs, Boulevard de Waterloo, 35. 1859.

MORE than three hundred years ago, a noble knight of Franconia, well acquainted with Italian affairs, and an accomplished scholar, poet, and orator, published at Mayence an attack upon the Papacy, entitled "Trias Romana," in the form of a dialogue, in which the interlocutors are the author-Nebrich von Hutten-and his friend Ehrenhold. The former relates what had been told him of the Court of Rome by a traveller named Vadiseus; and these stories take the form of triads,* frequently interrupted by the exclamations of Ehrenhold, and by the reflections which he and Hutten interchange. The "Trias Romana" is remarkable for the stinging pungency of its satire, the power of its invective, and the fearless boldness of its language, and proved a most powerful instrument in furthering the cause of the Reformation throughout Germany, by opening the eyes of the Germans to the monstrous abuses of the system to which they and their forefathers had for centuries submitted. But in these days the Papacy had long arms, and the success and popularity of Nebrich von Hutten's satire roused against him a host of enemies, whose persecution at length drove him to die, in misery and solitude, on the little island of Neffnan, in the Lake of Zurich. Since the publication of the "Trias Romana," there has appeared no more terrible exposé of the follies, corruptions, and crimes of the Papal system than M. About's "La Question Romaine." The invective of the great knightly reformer is more terrible, his passion more concentrated, his satire more bitter; while M. About is more polished and graceful, not so passionate or abusive, equally witty, and far less coarse. Nor are these differences to be wondered at. In the sixteenth century, toleration was not understood even by the Reformers themselves.

* For example-"Three things are brought from Rome by those who go there : a bad conscience, a spoiled stomach, an empty purse," and so on.