of the step which I have thought it my duty to take; if not, I now beg to inform you that I am no longer your subject. I have renounced your jurisdiction, and abjured the errors of your Church. On reading this, you will, no doubt, exclaim, "The ruffian, the apostate; has he thus treated me?" But such epithets, Rev. Sir, are unworthy any man professing to be a Christian minister; they are adapted for the low and unenlightened multitude; they would apply equally to St. Paul or St. Augustine, for these men apostatized- but it was from error. I have as strong a conviction as ever they had, that by the step which I have taken I have abandoned error and embraced the truth; and in so doing, I have merely done what I conceive every being who considers himself accountable to his God for his life and actions, ought to do. Your threats and menaces have no terrors for me. My answer is that given by the apostle on a similar occasion— "Nonne decet obedire Deo magis quam hominibus.”

If you are sincerely of opinion, which I doubt much, that I have acted injudiciously, you ought rather to pity than blame me; for, in a temporal sense, I have sacrificed much and gained nothing. I have lost the society and friendship of all that were near and dear to me on earth; a lucrative situation; and, if inclined to indulge in pleasure, the means of gratification; for where could I have more opportunity of doing so, than I should have had as a priest of your Church? I could have taken for my motto the well-known and oft-quoted passage of St. Augustine, "Si non caste saltem eaute," which in plain English signifies, "No law of man can supersede the law of nature." There was a law in Sparta by which children were punished, not for stealing, but for being caught in the act; your Church has adopted that law with regard to her priests, and the seventh commandment. To repeat the Psalm "Miserere," or "De Profundis," half a dozen of times is considered a sufficient penance in the confessional-if ever the culprit should have recourse to that ordeal, which is seldom the case; and then a brother culprit gives him absolution, and the sin is remembered

no more.

I also could have availed myself of that mild law, but I have not done so, because my conscience was a never-sleeping monitor, reminding me of the eternal salvation of my soul, and for ever whispering these words into my ears-" What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" I could have persevered, as I am convinced some of your priests do, in bowing down before, and adoring that which I could not believe to be God; in paying the homage of my heart to the creature instead of the Creator; to the mother instead of the Son; to sticks and stones, in the form of crosses, instead of to Him who died on the cross; to holy water and holy wells; holy teeth; holy nails; holy bones; holy scapulars, and holy beads; holy garments, and holy cords; in fact, to everything declared by your Church to be holy-except to Him who alone is holy; but my conscience would not allow me. The conflict I had to endure was long and painful. Sleep was for a long time a stranger to my eyes. Often and often have I called on my God to give me moral courage and strength. He has heard me. I remembered his divine words, "He that loveth father or mother, brother or sister, more than me, is not worthy of me,"

and these words cheered me. May they constrain you also to abandon what you must know to be error, and to follow your Saviour! I cannot see how your conscience will allow you to do many things, which, as bishop of that Church, you are bound to do, although the Word of God forbids them. Thus, for example, by the second commandment, you are forbidden to make any image or graven thing, to bow down before it or worship it; but I have seen you and your priests on good Fridays take off your shoes or boots, and go before the altar, and prostrate yourselves three times successively before a crucifix held up for your adoration by another priest, pronouncing at each prostration the awful words-" Sancta crux! adoramus te," "Holy cross, we adore thee !" Why, such an open violation of God's commandment is enough to make the angels weep, and every pious Christian shudder!! It was with some reason the infidel Rousseau exclaimed on beholding it, "O, Israel, where now is thy God?" I value a crucifix, so far as it helps to keep in remembrance the death and passion of my Saviour, but no farther. Why! the spear and the nails have an equal claim to adoration as the cross! There must be a long string to your conscience, when you can thus disobey a commandment of God, and still pretend to be his minister. I thank my God that I have renounced a Church which could sanction such practices. I feel as if a mountain weight were removed from me. I am no longer the blind unthinking slave of a false system, and of a foreign despot, who, at different periods of time has been, according to all Roman Catholic historians, a monster of vice and wickedness; and the more I consider the step which I have taken, the more I rejoice in it, and shudder at the former state of my soul. The words of Dante's "Shipwrecked Mariner," are applicable to me

"Volgesi all' onda perigliosa e guata."

"Turns to the perilous wide waste and stands at gaze."

I have no ill feeling or hatred towards you, or any human being. I love my country as much as ever, if not more. I can say still

Land of my sires, when can I see

Your hills and dales and valleys free,
Your sons and daughters free as fair

Efface from their souls the brand of slaves!

Slavery of every description is odious, but none so odious as that which enslaves the soul. The distinguishing characteristic of Romanism is to have no free will-to have her infallibility-her divine right of kings, and passive obedience-taught by all her theologians. O'Connell might as well attempt to grow figs on thorns, as to expect to see civil liberty where there is spiritual slavery. Let him first prepare the soil for that exotic plant, civil liberty; let him first lay the foundation, by removing from the land that soul-enslaving system of theology now taught in Ireland; and then he can raise the superstructure; but not until then. I love my Roman Catholic countrymen, but I renounce for ever their religion. I have weighed their Church in the balance of eternal truth, the Word of God, and have found her wanting. I could not find one tittle in the Holy Scriptures to confirm her assumption of infallibility, the supremacy of her popes, her rule of faith, her restric

tion of the Scriptures, her image worship, her invocation of saints, her transubstantiation, her sacrifice of the mass, her purgatory, her prayer in an unknown tongue, her auricular confession, her communion in one kind, her indulgences, or her justification by works. On the other hand, the Scriptures directly and distinctly contradict her doctrines on each, and every one of these heads. Now, to make the matter clear to you, I shall merely refer to two of the foregoing: to wit, transubstantiation and auricular confession; and show you and your priests, that I had strong and convincing reasons for renouncing your Church.

Your Church teaches that in the Eucharist there is really and substantially present, the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine; and in proof of this doctrine she advances those passages of Scripture, Jno. vi. 51, 53. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye shall not have life in you."

Now your Church understands the foregoing words in a literal sense, and consequently teaches the five following absurdities: First absurdity-When our Saviour says, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven." If these words have any reference to the Eucharist, it would follow that the humanity of Christ came down from heaven-a doctrine contrary to the Athanasian creed. Your Church, and all Christians deny it; therefore it has no reference to the Eucharist. Second absurdity-It would follow from these words, if taken literally, that the divinity of Christ was changed into bread, and not that bread was changed into his body. Third absurdity-It would follow from these words, "if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever," if taken in a literal sense, that whoever goes to communion in your Church, shall not suffer death in this world, and in that to come shall go to heaven; but you deny this, and facts disprove it, therefore the words are figurative. Fourth absurdity-If the words, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye shall not have life in you," be taken in a literal sense, it would follow that the laity in your Church, from whom the cup is withheld, can have no hope of salvation; it would follow that children who die before their first communion shall perish for ever; it would follow that the penitent thief and John the Baptist are excluded from heaven. And fifth absurdity-It would follow, if the rite be not commemorative, that there is no necessity for repeating it; for if the words be taken literally, salvation is secured by doing it once. I should never end, were I to enumerate the inconsistencies and contradictions, into which your Church falls by adhering to the literal sense. I defy any man with two ideas, to consider them for one moment, without coming to the conclusion, that your Church teaches error, and that her doctrine of transubstantiation is false.

I will make it as clear to you as any proposition in Euclid. You will admit that any two sums, or two lines, each of which is equal to a third given one, must be equal to one another. You cannot deny this; it is a self-evident axiom. Now Christ has said, v. 64, "that whoso eateth his flesh, and drinketh his blood, hath life everlasting." He also says, that life everlasting cannot be obtained by any other means

"except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, ye have no life in you," v. 53. Again He says-"He that believeth in me hath life everlasting," v. 47. Therefore, to believe in Christ produces the same effect; that is to say, is the same, as to eat his flesh and drink his blood. I am as convinced of this truth as of my own existence. Some have doubted of the existence of matter, but nobody ever doubted of the truth of the above axiom:-if you desire to see the force and truth of it, see the sophistry used by Wiseman in the tracts to subvert it, and its complete failure. The words of Christ are most distinct and clear to show the nature and object of the rite he instituted, v. 63, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing;" and again, Luke xxii. 19, "This do in remembrance of me;" and St. Paul, 1 Cor. xi. 26, is equally distinct, "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death until he come."

But, even admitting transubstantiation to be true, still, I maintain, there is idolatry in the Church of Rome. I knew priests to use porter, through a mistake of their housekeepers, instead of wine, at the altar, and never to discover the mistake until they drank it. At the death of a late parish priest in your diocese, twelve of the neighbouring priests, as is usual on such occasions, came to say masses for him: no wine being in the house, a messenger was sent to Ennistymon for a bottle of wine; the messenger called at a wrong place; the consequence was, that he brought a bottle of ginger ale, having a mixture of wine in it to give it colour. The twelve priest said their masses, and I among the rest. While at breakfast, we all admitted there was no consecration, the wine being bad: thus each of us adored as God, that which we admitted not to be God, and the congregation adored ginger ale instead of the flesh and blood of Christ. If that be not idolatry, there never was idolatry in the world. Hence no Roman Catholic can ever adore, even if transubstantiation were true. They cannot know whether the priest has the intention; and without that, your Church teaches, there is no consecration. They cannot know but the bread is barley, or oaten bread; and in that case, she teaches there is no consecration. They cannot know but what is in the cup is porter, ginger ale, or adulterated wine; and then she teaches that there is no consecration. They cannot know whether the priest uses the right words, and then she teaches there is no consecration. They can never conscientiously adore, for conditional adoration is no adoration; for by conditional adoration I can adore everything, and still adore nothing. I could say to the sun, if thou art my God I can adore thee: a doctrine maintained by the Pagan philosophers, and which the early fathers proved to be execrable, it being either idolatry, or no adoration at all.*

Р

RODERICK RYDER, Lately a Priest of the Church of Rome, diocese of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora, and now in connexion with the Priests' Protection Society for Ireland.

Dublin, January, 1846.

* What follows in the original on the subject of the confessional, we are comelled to omit, though not at all doubting the statement contained in it.

126

DANGERS THAT THREATEN!!

WHEN dangers do really threaten, then it is the duty of every member of every civilized society to raise his voice; and however individually insignificant he may be to sound an alarm, that even in case a remedy should not be found for the entire evil, yet that an opportunity might be afforded by which the weight and suddenness of the consequences might be provided against. But the threatened dangers should also be of the most serious nature, and well ascertained, in order to authorize the individual in giving publicity to his thoughts, and in calling public attention to provide the necessary remedy for the evil; more especially so when negligence or indifference on the part of the governors of the country is assigned as the originating

cause.

Now, I consider that the time is fully come when silence would be, in fact, to participate in the guilt of those who are meditating the downfall of the religion of the land, and who have already opened the door to admit the deadliest enemy of our National Church and the Protestant Constitution, under which we have hitherto so evidently and so highly prospered.

The dangers to which I allude are, alas! both numerous and serious. They touch not merely the temporal, but the eternal interests of our fellow-subjects both at home and abroad. They affect not only the souls of our countrymen in general, but detract from the glory of our God and materially interfere with the spread of the truth as it is in Jesus; by tending at every step to substitute error and Popish superstition for the glorious Gospel of Christ, and to elevate the power of Antichrist over the Church and people of the ever-living and true God.

And these dangers seem purely to arise from the total absence of " a love of the truth" in the hearts of our governors. They may, 'tis true, tolerate and submit to, and go through in a perfunctory manner, the forms and services; and perchance some, through more forms and more services than the pure simplicity of our Reformed Church would sanction; but this is not to love the truth for its own intrinsic heavenly beauty. They may call themselves Protestants and Church of England men, and talk loudly about Episcopacy, Canons, Articles, Liturgies, and Formularies; but this, it seems, may well, in their opinion, consist with crippling the energy and rights of the same Church; with lopping off at one blow ten or a dozen Protestant bishoprics; with endowing Popish colleges; and refusing the public Protestant money, raised, too, chiefly from Protestant Church of England people, to support schools under the direction of the very bishops, priests, and deacons of the Established Church, which they, at the same time, pretend to admire so much. We love consistency, but assuredly those who act so can lay no claim to it.