6 repeated in our churches, and the Almighty again invoked, not as He 'who teaches our hands to war and our fingers to fight;' but as 'the God who did on that day' of Inkermann preserve our Church and State from the secret contrivance and hellish malice of Popish conspirators. Surely this is language which could not come from a Christian spirit, which no sane man would now dare to utter elsewhere, and which ought not to be heard in our churches, and, least of all, in solemn appeals to the Almighty. It is enough to bring a judgment upon us, for which Parliament would be responsible, since it, and it alone, can determine that such language shall never be so used again. And what more graceful tribute, what less costly honour could be paid to those who have died for their country a soldier's and a Christian's death, and who lie, as they do, without monumental mark or sepulchral token, far away from their English homes, sleeping their last sleep in the land of their enemies? It would be presumptuous to add more, for, that such a tribute will be paid to their memory by the unanimous voice of the Legislature, with the universal approval of the nation, must be the hope and prayer of all who regard the fair fame of their country and have any care for the nationality of the Church of England. "December 5.” "I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "MEMOR. Another writer, under the signature of "Presbyter," approves in the general of "Memor's" letter, but takes him to task for some real or supposed error. His letter is before us, but it would too much extend our article to quote from it. We would here observe, however, that an Act of Parliament was passed, 3 James I., c. 3, and that that Act is still in existence. It requires the day to be observed, but does not prescribe the service. And though a portion of this Act was repealed by a recent Act, 9 and 10 Vic., c. 59, sec. 1, "An Act to relieve Her Majesty's subjects from certain penalties and disabilities in regard to religious opinions," still all was left standing which required the clergy to observe the fifth day of November. Mr. Macaulay, in the second volume of his "History of England," observes, at p. 62, referring to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that Englishmen were never for a moment free from apprehensions of some great treason at home. For in that age it had become a point of conscience and of honour with many men of generous natures, to sacrifice their country to their religion." There may be such in the present day. And it is for deliverance from the machinations of such that the prayers are offered;-from men who "turn faith into faction;" from men who, in obedience to a foreign Potentate, can systematically evade or set at defiance the law of the land; who can tell us that without the sanction of the Pope, they hold the authority of Queen, Lords, and Commons, as "of no more value than a tenpenny nail; "-from men, who consider the freedom and authority of the Church of Rome paramount to all national considerations; from men, who can rejoice to see, in the words of a writer in the "Examiner," "France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and, we will add, England, Ireland, America, India, and Australia, pour into Rome their Episcopates at the Pope's bidding, without leave or license of the State-without thinking or caring about the approval or disapproval of their Sovereign; —from men, who can hold ideas and language so defiant of all temporal Governments, that are independent of Rome, and adopt, con amore, the tone of feeling by which the following paragraph is characterised : "The Pope issues his mandate, and is obeyed, whether princes like it or not. This is just, and is it not grand? Compared to it what grandeur, what power, what freedom, what extension, has any of your earthly Potentates-your Kings and Emperors of a petty domain? It is for deliverance from such principles, and from the actions of men who hold them, that the petitions in the service referred to are directed; not against individual Romanists, still less against those so nobly fighting and falling with their Protestant fellow-soldiers, fellow-subjects, and fellow-countrymen on the ensanguined plains or heights of the Crimea. Efforts may be made to procure a repeal of the Act of King James the First, and a revocation of the Order in Council setting forth the form of service. But we believe this will not be the case, or that, if the attempt be made, it will not be successful. THE SUPPOSED IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE. VIRGIN MARY. OUR readers will find this subject treated of in a subsequent page of the present number of this periodical. The absence of full certainty of information, and the want of space, prevent our here entering fully upon the question. But if Rome shall thus proceed to add this new dogma to her creed, we believe that in so doing, she has-we will not say laid the foundation, butsigned the death-warrant for her own execution. The Immaculate Conception is a figment, not a fact. The present generation will regard it as such, and multitudes will revolt before long from the system. The Gallican Church may very likely be found irreconcilably opposed to Rome on this question, or divided as to receiving as an article of faith this new doctrine-a doctrine now pronounced for the first time, ex cathedra. While Tractarians-at least many of them-and sympathizers with Rome in this country will probably hesitate before allowing their Romeward ten dencies to carry them further, or of engulphing them in the vortex, involving such palpable novelty, absurdity, and impiety as receiving as an article of faith essential to salvation the supposed Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. EVENINGS WITH THE ROMANISTS; WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ON THE MORAL RESULTS OF THE ROMISH SYSTEM. BY THE REV. M. HOBART SEYMOUR. SEELEYS. Svo., p. 524. ROMANISM is the enemy of the Gospel. It is no less the enemy of man. Its perversion of principle, leads into errors and mischiefs incalculable. Yet by some spell, it holds upon the minds of statesmen, and keeps its hold over nations which might be free from its tyranny, and souls which might otherwise be emancipated from superstition. Mere declamation against Popery, or any other form of error, we regard as of but little use; oftentimes, indeed, as positively injurious. But to point out evils, and trace them to their cause, and show a remedy, is to render good service to society. This Mr. Seymour has attempted and performed in the above work, and thereby laid the Protestant community under an increased debt of obligation to him. In his "Evenings with Romanists," Mr. Seymour gives some of the results of his travels in other lands, and from a letter prefixed to the volume, and addressed to Lord Palmerston, we extract the following. The writer having spoken of its having been his lot to travel much in foreign lands while Lord Palmerston held the seals of the Foreign-office, proceeds, "It was a period of surpassing difficulty, a period when the stormi of the popular passions burst upon Europe, and the first wave of the coming tide, the inevitable tide of free institutions, broke upon the nations in 1848. I was a witness to the manner in which your name was received throughout Europe. It was received with a noble and generous enthusiasm, and has become enshrined in the popular mind of the nations. It is the watchword of constitutional progress." Mr. Hobart Seymour then expresses his hope and prayer, that one who proved himself a British Minister in the Foreignoffice, will also prove himself a British Minister in the Homeoffice, and that he will not suffer any foreign Power, especially any Italian Power, to obtain an undue influence in the affairs of this nation, and expresses his own wish to see the Noble Lord in religious as well as in political matters, a British Minister. With that feeling his intention is invited to the pages which follow, pages which "relate to the effect on crime and immorality produced by the Italian system in all lands where it has influence, and they are thus far a warning against the un necessary encouragement of an Italian priesthood or Italian. institutions in this country." The following epitome of the first fifty-nine pages of the work will give some tolerable idea of the pains taken by the writer, and of the frightful extent and nature of crime which flourishes where Romanism prevails. We only give here the result of bis own examination of authentic returns, made by public authority in nearly all the so-called Catholic states of Europe, as to the single crime of murder. We merely extract the numerical statement from a Report of his speech, and leave readers to their own conclusion. Let the plain question be put: "How many persons in every million of population are taken up and prosecuted for murder every year? In order to answer this question, Mr. Seymour has examined the judicial returns, in each country, for several years, and struck the average. This done, he answers thus : "In Protestant England, there are prosecuted every year for murder, in each million of the population (It is gratifying to hear him say that only one out of the four In Ireland, before the great emigration, there were In Belgium, least immoral of Popish countries In France, where murder is classified rather scientifically, In Austria, the like varieties of murder In Sardinia, where there has been for ages (in one part of that In Tuscany, where a British Christian, if in earnest, may not live 4 4.5 19 18 31 36 68 20 45 84 In the Papal States, where the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, In Naples, where they have a taste for blood, and publicly But in England, let it be once more noted, only . 90 200 4" Mr. Seymour, at p. xxx of his chapter on the "moral results of the Romish system," enters thus upon a consideration of some of the causes of these results : "But eternal and sacred truth demands a further statement. There is an element of difference between the two religions of immense importance. It is this, "Both Romanism and Protestantism are agreed as to the deep, black, awful sinfulness of the murderer. They are in accord as far as the murderer himself is concerned, as to his conscience, as to his soul, as to his eternal destinies, if he die unrepentant. They may differ, indeed, as to the mode of getting rid of his guilt, but they are in accord so far as the murderer himself is concerned, while they are as wide as the poles respecting the murdered victim. "This difference is wide and important in its results. That which gives a double-dyed guilt and shivering horror to the crime of murder in the eyes of a Protestant is, that it is suddenly sending an immortal being unbidden before his final Judge ;-unprepared, and perhaps unthinking, before the last judgment, then and there, with all his imperfections on his head,' to receive his eternal destinies. There is no change in the grave; as he lived and died, so he rises and is judged, It is this that gives such unspeakable awe to this crime, and makes a good man shudder at its very name. But in the Church of Rome all this feeling, so cogent in restraining this crime, is annihilated. In her it is held, that the moral condition of a man may undergo a change in the grave-that he may be purified and bettered in his after-state by purgatorian sufferings; and that after a time he may even stand spotless and blameless before his Judge. In connexion with this doctrine it is held that the friends of the dead can relieve his sufferings, and secure his release, by getting Masses said for his soul. And these Masses are to be bought and sold as any other merchandise in the market. The result is, that the murderer looks on his bleeding victim, as he lies stark and ghastly, and he comforts himself with the thought that the surviving friends of the victim have it in their power to save him, by having masses offered for his soul; and that if they indeed fail-if they withhold the money from the priest, he himself has but to pay a trifling sum for the required number of masses; and he thus relieves himself -he disburdens his conscience of all that which gives the highest awe, the darkest and dreariest colour to this crime in the eyes of a Protestant Christian. There are certain "I have myself personally witnessed this traffic. altars, called privileged altars,' in the churches of Rome; the special privilege of which is, that a single mass said at such altar is adequate to release from purgatorian suffering the soul for which it is offered. I witnessed personally the sale of this privileged mass to a large number of persons in the Church or Basilica of Santa Croce di Gerusalemme in Rome. Each person stated the name of the friend supposed to be suffering in purgatory-paid four pauls, about one shilling and eightpence, and received an acknowledgment in writing! I witnessed again the same process at the feast of the Assumption, at Varallo, in 1851. I had visited the Sacra Monte there to witness the pilgrimages |