position, it seems called, we have no apprehension. The Lord reigneth, and under the shadow of his wing there is safety, and his blessing alone can make prosperous. In vain shall the craft of Satan or of man, be exerted against those nations who have the Lord on their side; and vainly shall nations seek to prosper when they have departed from God, renounced him in their policy, and alienated from them Him, whose favour is better than life.

There is now no longer ground to doubt but that many are resolved to endow Popery, and to renew, if the people of this country permit it, diplomatic relations with the Court of Rome.

Each of these measures we believe to be impolitic, unscriptural, and dangerous. We believe them to be so because to endow the Romish priesthood, would be to give greater power to Popery; and to renew diplomatic relations with Rome, would be transferring by degrees the seat of government from St. James's to the Vatican.

Is not Great Britain sufficient for the governing of her own people and dependencies? Have we allowed the insidious power of Rome so far to gain ground as to be able to dictate to us the price of peace? And to require, as an instance of national degradation, we should, after a faithful protest of centuries, renew an alliance with the doomed apostasy?

It will be so if those who should oppose remain inactive. It will not be so if those to whom, in Church and State, has been delegated the important duties of watching over our institutions, act up consistently to their principles and their convictions.

The Protestant feeling of the country is strong enough in itself, but it requires leaders-leaders in whom confidence can with good reason be placed-who have never yet betrayed their religion or their country,-who have not from love of popularity voted for Romish concession-and from love of popularity rather than conviction would vote for their removal.

Will those who love the truth, "as the truth is in Jesus," will they allow that truth to be endangered and betrayed? Made free themselves, and reconciled to God by a true and living faith in Christ the Son-will they permit a system of idolatry to be engrafted on the minds of the people of this land? Will those who value the independence of the empire consent to see a controlling power an appellant jurisdiction given to a foreign potentate and his conclave? We trust they will not, but that making themselves acquainted with the various measures from time to time to be brought forward in favour of Popery, they will be prepared, vigorously, prayerfully, to resist them by petitions, remonstrances, addresses, deputations,-will exert what influence they possess to uphold their faithful representatives in the House of Commons in their resistance of any attempts to throw off our national Protestantism, or impair our institutions, whether in Church or State, by infusing the leaven of Popery into them.

MANY there are who enter monastic enclosures with feelings of rapturous delight, fondly expecting to realize a hiding-place from the storm, a covert from the tempest, and a secure haven,

"Where no wind can reach them, and no wave can harm,"

but who afterwards discover, to their unutterable sorrow, that they have followed the "ignis fatuus" of their own imagination—are more tempest-tossed than ever-and instead of landing safely on a sheltered island, have but alighted on a dangerous quicksand.

But it may be asked, what is there pernicious in the monastic system, as "religious" now-a-days, do not adopt the austerity of the ancient recluses? I answer, in the first place, sSOLITUDE. Now, very few minds are sufficiently impregnable to bear up against an evil so formidable as this. And hence the adoption of solitary confinement by our civil rulers as a mode of punishment, to which the most hardened culprit must become sensitive. Think you, reader, is it nothing to pass your existence away in a dream-to have your lips sealed for ever-your affections dead within your bosom-and no will that you can call your own? "To be alone," as Michelet says, "and yet not alone; forlorn, and yet watched. Alone in a solitude without tranquillity of mind, and void of repose. How sweet in comparison with this would be the solitude of the woods! The trees would have compassion-they are not so insensible as they seem-they hear and they listen!" And, reader, call you this nothing?

But attend to the evidence of Dr. Andrew Combe on the evils of solitude:

"If we shun the society of our fellow-creatures, and shrink from taking a share in the active duties of life, mental indolence and physical debility beset our path. But if, by engaging in the business of life, and taking an active interest in the advancement of society, we duly exercise our various powers of perception, thought, and feeling, we promote the health of the whole corporeal system, invigorate the mind itself, and at the same time experience the highest mental gratification of which a human being is susceptible-that of having fulfilled

the end and object of our being, in the active discharge of our duties to God, to our fellow-men, and to ourselves. If we neglect our faculties, or deprive them of their objects, we weaken the organization, give rise to distressing diseases, and at the same time experience the bitterest feelings that can afflict human nature, ennui, and melancholy! The harmony thus shown to exist between the moral and physical world is but another example of the numerous inducements to that right conduct and activity, in pursuing which the Creator has evidently destined us to find terrestrial happiness." * Even upon the very deaf and dumb, solitude exercises a most injurious effect, as is satisfactorily proved. And Pinel ‡ relates a case which strikingly shows the dire consequences of suddenly removing from society, and entering upon solitude, which we will not quote as it is too professionally described to interest the ordinary reader.

There is no truth so self-evident, no proposition so axiomatic, as that the monastic system has an especial tendency to vitiate and debase the intellectual powers, and to materially injure the physical organs of man. The mind of the unhappy votary of such a system must eventually become deranged, when its designs, its thoughts, and its affections are continually thwarted and suppressed. I have known some, and am intimately acquainted with others, who entered in rude health, within the walls of a convent, but in a very short time began rapidly to decline, from the effects of a destructive system of discipline. For my own part, I yet feel the pernicious consequences of the monastic life.

Solitude predisposes to mental disquietude; for so intimately allied are mind and body, and so tender is the sympathy existing between each, that the entire ruin of the constitution is the inevitable result of protracted seclusion from mankind. And who can administer to a mind diseased? Not that we condemn occasional retirement from the hum of business and the haunts of men. To be religious we must be reflective: to be devout we must be meditative. And reflection to be profitable must seek solitude, where God may be tasted, and heaven felt!

"A soul in commerce with her God, is heaven,
Feels not the tumults and the shocks of life-
The whirls of passions, and the strokes of heart.”

In fact, no progress in the spiritual life can be made without occasional abstractedness from the world. And the man who neglects so salutary a means of advancement in piety, and at the same time, makes high professions of Christianity, proves that he neglects the heart, whilst he cherishes the carcase of religion! He is noble above all others who lives not for the body-and who uses the world as though he used it not!

"Titles and honours, if they prove his fate,
He lays aside to find his dignity."

We have shown how solitude is the procuring cause of mental disease. It now remains to notice the physical evils which those of a mental character induce :

* "Principles of Physiology." ↑ Vide Andral's " Dict. of Medicine,” vol. xx. Sur l'Alienation Mentale, p. 157, s. 160.

"If," says Dr. Combe, "the mind be oppressed with grief, anxiety, or remorse, the stimulus which it communicates is far from beneficial, being no longer in accordance with the conditions designed by the Creator. It is in such circumstances, accordingly, that bad health is so often seen to arise from the state of the mind, and that suffering is produced which no art can relieve till the primary cause has ceased to exist."

And again, treating upon depression of mind, the same writer observes:

-

"The depressing passions predispose to pulmonary consumption; a fact which has been remarked from a very early period. When the mind is in a state of depression, the whole nervous system becomes enfeebled; the stimulus to the other organs, on which so much of their vital power depends, is impaired; and a general want of tone pervades the system, rendering the principal organs of the body, and the lungs among the rest, unusually susceptible of disease. ... Grief, sorrow, and other depressing passions of the mind, diminish the activity of the circulation, impair respiration, lower vitality, and consequently render the organization more than usually susceptible of diseases arising from diminished action..... The tendency of grief, despondency, and sorrow, is to produce meditative inaction."

But it may be retorted: Are not these remarks as applicable to every other condition of life as to that in question? Are not disappointments consequent upon every station ? And is not grief entailed, by reason of those disappointments, upon each member of which society is composed? Nor does the head graced by a coronet become less sensitive to its sting than that of the less favoured, which never reclined on a pillow of down? We reply that such is not the fact. Monasticism induces calamities peculiarly distressing. It creates griefs which society knows not of. And besides, it has not the assuasives which society possesses. Hence its victims endure in silence; and the very thought that no remedy is availing, serves but to increase the agony of the sufferer! 'Tis true that in every sphere of existence, from the hand that grasps the sceptre to that which extends itself to receive the bounty of the passer-by, cares and anxieties are to be found. No individual has yet discovered a path-way strewed with roses, on which no thorn reared its prickly head. Every one has his peculiar griefs, and each regards his own as the most severe. "Man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward." 'Tis the decree of heaven. None are exempt from the universal visitation. If God sends us trouble he will impart strength to bear it. His word is pledged. And what can yield a more pleasing satisfaction, than the consciousness of doing the will of our Heavenly Father?

"Life's cares are comforts; such by Heaven's designed,
He that hath none must make them or be wretched;
Life's cares are an employment—and without employ
The soul is on a rack.'

As it is the pleasure of Providence to allot trials, it is not for us to increase them by moving in a track which Divine Wisdom never appointed, and on which the smiles of Deity never alight.

It is a striking fact, that noviciates, or convents where young persons are trained for the monastic profession, perfectly resemble hospitals.

Most persons become ill before their first retreat has ended. And I am rather surprised that many more deaths do not occur in those pestilent places. Would to God that such dens of seclusion were banished from every country, for they are the pests of society, the annihilators of the noblest principles of human nature, the blight of many a family, the scourge of many a heart, the murderers of many a soul and body! It is not my purpose to make an elaborate display of the vices of monastics. No. I pity, I love them too much to dip my pen in "the gall of bitterness," in order to pourtray their character: nor do I believe that they are as bad as they are often represented. Justice demands this avowal.-And for the honour of humanity I assert my conviction. The invocation of Michelet to the priests, I fervently address to monastics :—“ Oh, how my heart swells for all these unfortunates! How many prayers have I made that they may be permitted to abandon a condition which gives so rude a contradiction to nature, and to the progress of the world! Oh! that I might with my hands build up and cheer the domestic hearth of these poor creatures-give them the first rights of humanity-re-establish them in truth and life, and say to them, 'Come and sit with us, leave that deadly shadow, and take thy place, O sister, O brother, in the sunshine of God!'"

As a painful illustration of the miseries attendant upon "LIFE IN A CONVENT," I trust the kind reader will bear with me whilst I quote the language of a personal friend, Signor Raffaele Ciocci, formerly a Benedictine monk, in Rome, who, thank God, has escaped from the dungeon of the Inquisition. He was the pupil or Librarian of the late Pontiff, Gregory XVI. "Rome in the Nineteenth Century," is the fruit of his talented pen, since he came to this country; which work has been translated into no less than seven living languages. Therein he depicts the monster evils resulting from monastic gloom. This is his confession :

"I was shut up for fifteen days in solitude in my room, in order that I might devote myself entirely to religious exercises. After ten days of rigorous confinement, for even my food was brought to my chamber, I became ill, my feet swelled, I was oppressed with constant pain in the head; if I attempted to walk, after taking a few turns, I grew dizzy, and was compelled to throw myself upon the bed; and it frequently happened, that being unable to reach it, I fell fainting to the ground, but no one came to my assistance. These indispositions were, no doubt, the effect of want of light, and air, and exercise."

Mr. Ciocci thus touchingly depicts his feelings:

"The three days' solitude to which I was condemned in the agitated state of my feelings, writhing under the discovery of the cruel deception of which I had become a victim, and which had forced me on to a step that might prove irrevocable, almost distracted me. I had, during this confinement, ample time for reflection, but not one sustaining hope brought comfort to my soul. Now and then the thought of God would flash upon my mind, like the polar star upon the gaze of a tempest-tossed seaman, but instantly it was lost behind the thick clouds of impenetrable darkness, with which the Romish religion has clothed the God of mercies. Meditation served but to thicken the clouds of my spirit, and to embitter the balm which an occasional gleam of