divine intelligence shot into my soul; clipping the wings of hope, it plunged me yet deeper into despair. I was upon the rocks of Gilboa, cursed by God, upon which no herbage ever springs, and where the fertilizing dews of morning never descend. Abstinence added physical debility to mental suffering, and brought on an indisposition to sleep, which was the more intolerable that it prolonged the sense of my sorrowful existence. When, for a few moments, exhausted nature triumphed, my dreams were such as may be supposed to disturb the sleeping hours of one occupied with the single idea of terror."

He next speaks of Dr. Ricardi, a kind and excellent man, to whom he opened his bosom griefs and made known the sorrows of his heart; and spoke to him unreservedly of his aversion to the monastic state. The Doctor sympathized with him, and added:-"I have attended in this monastery for ten years, and also in many other religious houses, and in all I discover youths who, like you, have been lamentably deceived. I hear the same complaints, I am called upon to cure the same disease. And, Oh! in how many instances have I known it to prove fatal!"

As an unhappy victim to monasticism, out of many sad examples, I shall mention the melancholy case of Gerald Griffin, Esq., author of the "Collegians," "Munster Festivals," and other works of fiction. This talented young man entered the same religious order as myself. Before his novitiate had expired, however, he became ill. But, as is usually the case, little notice was taken of his indisposition. I do not believe that neglect so culpable as this arises from feelings of indifference towards the afflicted, but in order that the sufferer may be exercised in self-denial, all sympathy is studiously avoided. It is, I conceive, the greatest trial to which a human being can be subjected, when the hour of sickness approaches to find no tender bosom nigh— no friendly arm to relieve-no sympathizing heart to pity. Soon his disease made rapid advances, his constitution sunk, his strength failed him! Now, indeed, his malady assumed too serious an aspect to be trifled with. Medical aid was obtained, every effort made in order to his recovery; but all was unavailing, he died in a few days! Even when expiring nature heaved its latest sigh, none of his brethren were present. He literally died alone as he had predicted!* Oh! had he

* The "prediction" alluded to, is found in the following poem, transcribed from the poetical effusions of Gerald Griffin, Esq., published by the brethren of the order with which he was connected, one of whom has furnished me with the particulars I have mentioned:

remained in the world, and fulfilled the purposes for which his Creator had designed him, he would, in all probability, have been saved from a premature grave, and not wither, perish, and "die alone," without the sweet solace which God had intended woman to impart !—

"For 'mid the hour of woe and grief,

When sickness pales the blooming cheek,
"Tis woman's hand that brings relief
When man, the vaunted brave, is weak:
'Tis then we know how dear it is
To feel a kindred bosom burn,
With nature's kindliest sympathies,
For joys that never may return.
'Tis then we feel how bright and sweet
Is woman's warm and tender love;
It softens down the bed of pain,
And points to happier worlds above-
And cheers, in nature's latest strife,

The faint and flickering flame of life!"

What, then, can be more fully established, than that the monastic system is the poisoner of the mind, and the destroyer of the body? True, it works gradually. Its operations are, at first, imperceptible. But many a brilliant and blooming youth are yearly sacrificed on the altar of this modern Moloch, and are "sent to rejoin in heaven those martyrs that have preceded them." I remember reading in the Tyrol, the tragic history of the Benedictine Abbé, who, not daring to violate his vows, (for they are stronger than death,) and being unable to become released from them, stabbed himself to the heart!

For then a stilly voice repeating

What oft hath woke its deepest moan,
Startles my heart, and stays its beating,
I am alone! I am alone!

Why hath my soul been given
A zeal to soar at higher things
Than quiet rest-to seek a heaven,

And fall with scathed heart and wings?
Have I been blest? the sea-wave sings
"Tween me and all that was mine own;
I've found the joy ambition brings

And walk alone! and walk alone!

I have a heart :-I'd live

And die for him whose worth I knew,
But could not clasp his hand and give
My full heart forth as talkers do-
And they who loved me--the kind few
Believ'd me chang'd in heart and tone,
And left me, while it burn'd as true,
To live alone! To live alone!

And such shall be my day

Of life, unfriended, cold, and dead,
My hope shall slowly wear away,

As all my young affections fled;

No kindred hand shall grace my head
When life's last flickering light is gone;

But I shall find a silent bed

And die alone! and die alone!

It is my decided opinion that Government should not overlook monastic establishments, but watch over them with vigilant care. It is a melancholy fact to know that several individuals are confined in these asylums by compulsion. Yet they dare not complain, for this would be but to enhance their misery, by causing a stricter guard to be placed upon their actions. Such a course of procedure would subject the offenders to increased mortifications, severer penances, and render their existence, already melancholy enough, one continued scene of uninterrupted gloom!

Oh! where is the parent that would immure his child in monastic solitude, had he but a faint idea of its misery? Did he but know that the very system to which he consecrates for ever all he holds most dear on earth, teaches that child to banish filial affection from her bosom ! and causes her to hate what God commands her to love! Did he but know that the cloistered cell is a living tomb, and that within its cerements the heart becomes subjected to a decay similar to that which the body undergoes in the sepulchre! Better far that the father had found his daughter's spirit flown to its Maker, and poured the dew of affection upon her ice-cold cheeks, than to burn with the thought that her mind and body, by a lingering process, should be mouldering within the convent walls!

"Oh! 'tis a deeply fearful thing

To watch the young heart withering;
To see the eye that once was bright,
Close 'mid the shades of sorrow's night;
To see the form in beauty's bloom,
Sink to its cold, but living tomb;
A life of death, in which is felt

The darkness which no sun may melt."

DIVIDED ALLEGIANCE.-ARE ROMANISTS OUR FELLOW

SUBJECTS?

To the Editor of the Protestant Magazine.

SIR,-In the letters which you did me the favour to insert in the last number of the Protestant Magazine, I endeavoured to point out the fallacy and inconsistency of designating Roman Catholics by the title of fellow-subjects: I also endeavoured to show that any claim set up on this plea, to an equal participation in all the privileges of the British Constitution, was entirely groundless, on account of the allegiance which Romanists owe, and the relation in which they stand, to a foreign despot, who, as pretended Vicar of Christ, and universal bishop, aims at universal dominion throughout Christendom.

I have since met with the opinion of Bishop Davenant on this subject, which is so much to the purpose, that I venture to solicit a place for it in the next number of the Magazine.

If due attention were paid to the sound reasoning of such learned divines as Bishop Davenant and Bishop Burgess on this point, we

should hear no more from statesmen and others of that solecism in language,-"Our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects." *

I am, Sir, your obedient, faithful Servant,

AMICUS PROTESTANS.

TRANSLATION OF QUÆST. XVII. OF THE DETERMINATIONS OF

BISHOP DAVENANT.

"THE parties spoken of are not [good subjects] is indubitable; their villanous practices against kings tell it out clearly. The question is, whether they can be good subjects. The doctrines promulgated by Jesuits, and received by all their followers, do not allow it; for whoever approves of Jesuitical doctrine, and carries it into practice, whether he be a clerk, or a layman, cannot, on any ground, maintain the title of a good subject. Let us consider, first, the case of the clergy.

* When our leading statesmen touch upon the subject of religion, they are apt to venture out of their depth and betray their ignorance. Lord Melbourne did this, when in the House of Lords he asserted that "the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church were fundamentally the same with those of the Church of England." This called forth a just rebuke from Bishop Burgess, who, in his letter to Lord Melbourne on the idolatry and apostasy of the Church of Rome, shows that the two Churches are diametrically opposed to each other on the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion.

The late Earl Grey committed a similar mistake when he stated in the House of Lords, "If it be necessary to exclude Roman Catholics from office and power, is it likewise necessary to denounce their belief and revile their worship? Must it not be galling to that body, not only to be denied the privileges to which their fellow-subjects are admitted, but to hear themselves branded as the votaries of a blind superstition, and the partisans of an idolatrous worship?" Dr. Phillpotts, (now Bishop of Exeter,) in animadverting on this speech, observes,-" Pardon me, my Lord, when I say, that your Lordship's late speech abounds with positions wholly untenable, and with facts greatly misapprehended, that, in short, it affords a striking illustration of the danger, from which no strength of talents or splendour of eloquence can exempt their possessor, when he ventures on a field of argument which is foreign to his ordinary pursuits."

Dr. Phillpotts adds,—“ One of the most striking characteristics of your speech is, a readiness to inculcate the notion, that there is, in reality, very little difference of doctrine between the Churches of England and Rome. The attempt is not a new one."

Our leading statesmen do not appear to be at all aware that the whole fabric of Popery is constructed upon a denial of Christ, as the only mediator between God and man. They need reminding that Christ will be our only mediator, or he will be no mediator at all, for he will not share the honours of his mediatorial throne with any created being.

Mere politicians, who have no higher standard to regulate their conduct by than expediency, and who are so little acquainted with the rudiments of Christianity that they cannot discern the difference between a religion that is true, and one that is false and counterfeit, are very unfit to govern a Christian country. When such men talk of endowing an idolatrous and Antichristian priesthood, like that of Rome, and call Romanists fellow-subjects, it is time to remind them of their ignorance and incompetency on a question of such vital importance as the admission of idolaters, and the subjects of a foreign potentate, to a full participation in all the privileges of the British Constitution.

Taking the Bible as our standard, it is very questionable whether it is right in Christian rulers even to tolerate idolatry: there can be no doubt that it is a sin of the deepest die, and of the most heinous character to endow it. Nothing but the grossest and most disgraceful ignorance on the part of our leading statesmen could lead them to entertain the thought of doing this for a moment, for what is the grand object of revealed religion but to deliver the world from idolatry?

"And here I assume it as sufficiently manifest, that they are not to be reckoned for good subjects, nay, are not even to be ranked as subjects, who insist that they are free from the yoke of the secular power, that the laws of princes maintain not their constraining force over them; and what is more, if it happen that they offend against the civil laws, assert that they cannot be punished by the civil magistrate, nay, cannot be even brought before his tribunal. Can such, I ask, be accounted subjects, who profess that they are neither bound by the laws of their own princes, nor, if they violate them, are obnoxious to the adjudication of penalty? The opinion of the apostle concerning a good subject, in Rom. xiii. 1, is different, where he commands every soul to be subject to the higher powers, and likewise, judges it to pertain to this subjection, that you acknowledge yourself amenable to the sword of the magistrate, if you have been guilty of any crime. On the contrary, that saying of Bellarmine (De Cler., lib. 1) obtains with the followers of the Jesuits, The clergy are not bound to civil laws, as those of princes, for instance, by any coercive obligation, but only by a directive one.' But what if they are unwilling to be directed? What, if they frowardly trample these laws under their feet? Yet they cannot,' says the same Bellarmine, (ibid., cap. 28,) be punished by the political magistrate, or in any way be brought to the tribunal of the secular magistrate.' And what if they should commit the very heinous crime of treason? Here the Jesuit Eudæmon meets us very opportunely, and suggests, that the crime of treason cannot, indeed, be properly committed by the clergy, who are exempt from the law of subjection, which Zimancha expressly teaches, that is to say, 'that the rebellion of a clerk is not a crime of high treason, because he is not a subject of the king.' Let those boast no more of being good subjects, who do not even acknowledge that they are under the obligation of being subjects. So far concerning the doctrine of exemption, which militates against the very ground of civil subjection.

"To this we may add that Jesuitic dogma of the seal of confession, which compels the Popish priests, infected with that poisonous notion, oftentimes to neglect the duty of a good and faithful subject. For suppose bloody traitors to have conspired against the life of the king, and against the whole state, and to have revealed it by confession to a pontifical priest, yet if he be imbued with the Jesuitical doctrine, he will say with Eudæmon, (Apolog. p. 355,) 'It is not for me to reveal those things which are told in confession, either to preserve the life of the king, or the safety of the whole state;' or, with Gregory de Valentia, (tom. iv. de Sigil. Confess.) What any one has come to the knowledge of only at the confessional, he may in no way reveal for any end whatever, although it may seem to relate to the public good.' Garnet, imbued with this Jesuitical theorem, set up as his defence (but falsely) for not having made known that mad crime of blowing up the whole kingdom, that forsooth it came to his knowledge only through the confessional. Now it remains with you to judge what sort of subjects they are, who had rather for their country and their prince to perish, than infringe that fictitious seal. Assuredly, the safety of the state is a supreme law to good subjects, and not to be superseded by that Jesuitical dream.... But I fear, in a question about good subjects,