negligent of, but in direct opposition to the Word of God; -most idolatrous in its worship, which, however ingeniously the practice may be attempted to be explained, certainly does lead the ignorant - those precisely who most require to be fortified against such error and delusion to have firmer reliance on the intercession of their saints, than on God himself, who seems to be scarcely at all the object of their devotions? In one word, Popery is "of the earth, earthy ;”—is revelation so overlaid and disfigured by human conceits and inventions, which, although they cunningly assume the semblance of righteousness, are for the most part quite the reverse of it, as to retain very little indeed of scriptural origin. The leaven of worldliness pervades it nor is it any argument to the contrary, that it has sometimes worked beneficially, and operated for good; because the same might be asserted of other religions which do not even affect to be Christian. The real question is which, when dispassionately examined, shows itself to be most in comformity with Scripture Catholicism, or Protestantism? And it is by Scripture, and by nothing else they can be tested; for if we admit any superior, or even equal authority, we endanger Christianity itself; that is, so far as we can at all be said to endanger that which, being of Divine origin, has nothing to fear from the machination of men. Yet, although Christianity would ride safe through the storm as it always has done hitherto, and ever will continue to do, thousands would be wrecked, and again plunged into that darkness which the Gospel when preached in its native purity is all-powerful to disperse. Many, indeed, would have us believe that at the present day Popery is little better than a mere phantom, powerless in itself, and formidable only as the bugbear of a party; yet that it is at this very time exceedingly active both in England and Ireland, and struggling to disseminate itself among us admits of no doubt. Speaking of its influence in the latter country, a recent writer in the Quarterly Review does not scruple to hold the following language, bold, yet not bolder than the occasion calls for:-"Their religion is a curse to themselves, and a curse to this country. No man professing to be a Protestant can deny this; and no statesman, with all his desire to sacrifice his belief to popularity, and reason itself, and all the warnings and struggles of those very men who are held up as the founders of our liberties, can call the Romanism of Ireland any thing but the plague of Great Britain. If it be otherwise; if Popery be consistent with civil liberty and the welfare of a country - if it be not the deadly bane of man's greatest blessings, and the bar against all his improvements, we have indeed made a discovery, and we had better return to Popery throughout the kingdom." That Romanism still continues to favour irrationalism, together with unscriptural tenets, and the most puerile fancies of monkery, can hardly be denied when we meet with the most idolatrous and blasphemous addresses to the Virgin in one of the popular books of devotion used by the English Roman Catholics, wherein she is styled the Great Mediatrix. In regard to superstitions of a more grovelling and ridiculous kind, the Roman Church endeavours to get rid of the discredit of them, by asserting that it does not inculcate them; yet if we admit such plea, can we feel otherwise than indignant against a church which consents to wink at errors it is in duty bound to correct, and to adopt a system of convenient temporising and compromising on occasions where it ought to speak out fearlessly, and maintain what it conceives to be the truth? Surely such a church deserves all the odium of the superstitions and errors it encourages in consequence of not opposing them; which it feels to be shameful, yet is prevented by its own selfish and time-serving policy from rooting out. Yet, so that it do but maintain its own power, the Romish Church has no scruples as to the means it employs; nor, so long as they profess to adhere to it, does it regard though its followers be composed of dissembling hypocrites, and of deluded superstitious slaves.* *Not to withhold from so worthy a character the commendation due to him, I will add in this place, that the Rev. Mr. M'Lachlan, the Protestant minister at Nice, visited Interlacken solely for the purpose of preaching to the English, there being no regular Protestant clergyman to perform that duty, notwithstanding that such numbers our countrymen take up their abode there in the summer months. WHILE at Interlacken we took a boat and sailed up the Aar, into the lake of Brienz, on entering which we had the mountain Abendberg on our right, Beatenberg on the left and in front of us the Harder. Having arrived near the fall of Saxelen we desired to be put on shore, in order that we might behold that very singular cascade, or rather successsion of cascades, formed by projecting ledges of rock, which break the column of water into a number of separate falls from top to bottom, the entire height of which is about four hundred feet. Here, however, as is frequently the case with other celebrated waterfalls in Switzerland, the height does not appear so extraordinary as it otherwise would, on account of the colossal grandeur of the surrounding scenery, which is on such a scale as to diminish objects when judged in proportion to such a standard. Even where the immediate features of the scene do not detract from the importance of a single object of the kind alluded to, the eye has become so habituated to loftiness and magnitude, that the impression which would else be made upon it 202 PICTURESQUE VILLAGE. is in some degree weakened. This fall which descends between pine-trees, is crossed by an apparently very crazy bridge thrown from side to side. - Crossing over to the opposite side of the lake, we again landed at the foot of a mountain called Planell, where there is a village consisting of one narrow crooked street, whose houses are detached from each other, although their roofs nearly touch each other, owing to their great projection. It is the beau ideal of a Swiss village; yet the adjective portion of the epithet cannot very well in strict propriety be applied to it — it being so fantastically primitive that one might almost imagine it had been built expressly with a view to gratification of future picturesque hunters, it being the præterpluperfect of picturesqueness, with all that inexplicable charm and interest which occasionally accompanies deformity. The dress of the people was quite in keeping with the character of their houses, before which they were busily occupied, some in piling up flax to dry in the sun, others in beating out corn, laid upon a square block, with a kind of wooden bat. Our second little excursion from Interlacken was to Grindelwald, when we passed through the valley of Lauterbrunnen, along the banks of the Lütschinen. The road was in many parts dangerous, at least of fearful appearance, for it ran close to the edge of precipices, where there was not room for two carriages to pass, consequently where to meet another vehicle of any |