"What, then," asked Clara with considerable excitement, "do you advise me to do?"

"What? daughter," added Father Adrian, with increased animation and earnestness, "what can I advise, exhort, command, entreat you to do, but to give up the Bible? Alas! I fear, I greatly fear, nay, I tremble for you. I need not remind you this is not your first offence, nor is mine the first reproof that has reached your ear; and that word you profess so much to reverence tells us, He who being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.""

"Father," said Clara, starting forward, and throwing herself on her knees before him, "mistake me not, I kneel to you, but not as a token of submission to your spiritual authority, but I kneel to you, if not for the first, yet probably for the last time, to implore, to entreat you to consider well what you are doing, to pray most earnestly for divine direction, ere you take the key of knowledge from the immortal souls intrusted to your care, for, oh! the Saviour of the world pronounced a woe, an emphatic woe, on those who acted thus, on those proud Pharisees who entered not in themselves, and those who were entering in they hindered; oh! be not then like them; take not from me the Bible; hinder me not from entering into the kingdom, from fleeing for pardon to that Saviour whom the Bible reveals as both able and willing to save; send me not to other Mediators than him whom the Father has appointed; advise me not to quench the still small voice of grace in foolish scenes of vain amusement; oh! sooner take from me my life, than plunge me again in the doubt, the perplexity, the darkness I was involved in after I lately resigned my precious Bible."

Clara paused. The Jesuit looked on her with a milder eye as a flood of tears checked her voice, and prevented further utterance. He bade her rise from her knees, resume her composure, reflect on what he had said, and believe he was actuated towards her by the kindest feeling. Thus saying, he left the room.

(To be continued.)

DIVIDED ALLEGIANCE.-ROMANISTS NOT FELLOW-SUBJECTS. To the Editor of the Protestant Magazine.

man

SIR,-The accompanying letter was sent to the editor of the "Watchin consequence of an article appearing in that paper in which Romanists were spoken of as fellow-subjects, and a desire expressed that they should be permitted to enjoy all the privileges of the British constitution in common with ourselves.

If the editor speaks the sentiments of the Wesleyans generally, it is evident that this highly respectable body labours under grievous error on a very important subject so far as the interests of Protestantism are concerned. When our friends take up a false and dangerous position, it is necessary, even at the risk of giving offence, that they should be dislodged from it. With this view I ventured to combat

the opinions put forth by the editor, believing it to be contrary to common sense and common justice, that persons situated as Romanists are, with respect to a foreign, and I might add hostile, power, should be regarded and treated as fellow-subjects.*

It is the more extraordinary that the editor should fall into this error, because in a former paper (May 26) he speaks of Romanists as "the Pope's people in this country." There should be consistency. It is to little purpose that we denounce Popery, or the Church of Rome, as the great harlot of Babylon, as an intolerant, persecuting, idolatrous, Antichristian system; and the Pope as the great tyrant of Christendom, as "the man of sin and son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God, or that is worshipped," if, at the same time, we recognise "his people in this country" as fellow-subjects, and maintain that they are fit to enjoy, and fully entitled to participate in, all the privileges of the British Constitution. There is something so manifestly incongruous in all this, that it is difficult to conceive how any well constituted mind can believe in things so utterly irreconcileable with each other. They who act thus have neither truth nor reason on their side. They deal in bold assertions and false assumptions, but shrink from any thing like an appeal to sober argument.

As the editor did not think proper to insert my letter, it is at your service if you think any good is likely to arise from giving it pub→ licity.

July 3, 1847.

I am, Sir, your obedient, faithful Servant,

AMICUS PROTESTANS.

"As for Ireland, Queen Victoria is permitted to exercise power only by the connivance of the Bishop of Rome, for no secret is made that an Act of the British Legislature would be of no avail, except so far as it was enforced at the point of the bayonet, if the Romanist priesthood prohibited their ' subjects,' as they call them, from obeying it."-Christian Observer, 1841, p. 72.

66

They," the Synod of Papal bishops of the metropolitan province, "set up this code of laws under their episcopal authority, and thus put them into force and operation over all the Roman Catholic laity, whom they call not your Majesty's subjects, but their own subjects in the country."-The Laws of the Papacy, or the Nullity of the Government of Queen Victoria in Ireland, or the Pope the Virtual Ruler of the Land. By Rev. R. J. M'Ghee.

For further information on this subject see a review in the "Christian Observer" for July, of Dr. Wordsworth's "Letters on the Destructive Character of the Church of Rome, both in Religion and Policy." Dr. W. demonstrates beyond dispute the fact, that "the Pope does claim and exercise, as far as he can, a sovereign power, even in temporal matters, over the inhabitants and rulers of Christian countries."

Dr. W. forcibly observes, "As to the point of repealing laws against the Pope, I should be very glad to be informed whether he has ever repealed any one of his laws against us? Has he ever erased a single line of his canon law in which, as I have shown, he claims the power of deposing princes and absolving subjects from their allegiance? Never. Has he ever revoked one of his unchristian anathemas against us and our princes? Never. Has he ever ceased to impose his own oaths of allegiance and supremacy on Romish ecclesiastics who are subjects of the Queen of England, and to teach them that all their civil oaths to their sovereign, to the prejudice of his own interest, are perjuries? Never."

Dr. Wordsworth proceeds to submit to the consideration of sovereign princes and states, whether," instead of repealing their own just and necessary laws against the Papacy, they ought not rather to unite together in requiring the Pope to retract his illegal acts and decrees against their lawful authority."

"To the Editor of the Watchman.

"June 17, 1847.

"Sir,-In your paper of the 9th inst., p. 270, are some valuable remarks on the duties of Protestants in reference to the approaching election, but the article in which these remarks occur appears to me to contain some very objectionable matter.

"And let us not,' you observe, for this expression of our opinion,' be charged with an attempt to excite a senseless no-Popery clamour, or with cherishing a desire to see our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects treated with injustice.' . . We do not deny to our Romanist fellow-citizens the full exercise of their civil rights and privileges. We desire that every Roman Catholic should enjoy the full civil liberty of the British subject in common with ourselves.'

"Now, there is much that sounds plausible and liberal in all this, but the principle it involves, if carried out to its legitimate consequences, is just ruinous. It should never be forgotten that Romanists acknowledge a foreign allegiance. This fact, which ought to occupy a prominent place in our argument when treating of the civil rights and privileges of Romanists, you entirely overlook! It is, however, this fact upon which Protestants are accustomed to lay so much stress, because it proves that Romanists are not fellow-subjects, and at the same time it justifies Protestant states in withholding from them those privileges which can be justly claimed only by those whose allegiance is undivided.

"Abundant evidence might be brought forward to show that Romanists have no claim to the title of fellow-subjects; the following may suffice: The prelates,' said Henry VIII., at their consecration, make an oath to the Pope clean contrary to the oath that they make unto us, so that they seem to be his subjects and not ours.'-Hall's Chron., p. 205.

"Bishop Burgess, in his Address to the Roman Catholics of the United Kingdom on their subjection to a foreign jurisdiction,' observes, 'The interference of a foreign jurisdiction is contrary to national honour and independence, and has often been attended with great national calamities. To acknowledge the Pope's spiritual jurisdiction is to be the subjects of a power not only foreign but hostile to the Protestant religion; it is to do that which the laws declare to be a treasonable offence, and which but for the unexampled lenity of our tolerant condition, would subject you to the penalties of high treason. How persons, who, by the letter of our Constitution, are liable to such penalties, can have any claim to constitutional privileges, without renouncing all foreign jurisdiction, or how they can be called fellowsubjects with Protestants, without acknowledging with them the entire sovereignty of the King, has not been explained by any of your advocates.'

"Dr. Wordsworth says, It is proposed to relieve English Romanists from all penalties for asserting the Pope's supremacy in these realms in opposition to that of the Queen, and for extolling and maintaining his pretended and usurped power over her subjects. What is

this but to call upon the State to legalize a public profession on their part, that they are not subjects of the Crown, and to make this nonsubscription of theirs the occasion, ground-work, and reason for legislative innovations and aggressions against the Crown and the Constitution?'-Dr. Wordsworth on the Repeal of the Popish Penalties,

1847.

"The empire of Rome is at Rome and no where else. The priests of Rome are subjects of that empire, primarily and supremely, and they acknowledge other authorities only so far as Rome permits, and so far as may be consistent with their allegiance to Rome. These things are so much like truisms, that it seems strange that we should have to repeat, over and over again, facts which everybody knows, and which no one attempts to deny.-The Churchman's Monthly Review, 1843, p, 380.

"The foregoing is but a tithe of the evidence that might be adduced in confirmation of the fact that Romanists, though often called fellowsubjects, are not such in the strict and legitimate sense of the term. Any claim, therefore, set up on this plea, must be abandoned as untenable. To assert that persons who acknowledge a foreign allegiance are fellow-subjects, and as such entitled to the same civil rights, liberties, and privileges as those who acknowledge no such allegiance, is contrary to reason and common sense. The absurdity of such a proposition is rendered the more apparent, when it is considered that the individual whose subjects Romanists virtually are, is a foreign despot, who arrogates to himself the power of deposing kings, and of absolving men from their allegiance to their lawful sovereigns.

"Dr. Isaac Barrow calls the Roman pontiff a tyrant, usurper, and impostor, and says that his pretended authority has nothing but impudence and sophistry to countenance it.' The members of a religion which has such a tyrant for its head, and whose pretensions are so exorbitant, have no right to complain of injustice or persecution if in Protestant states they labour under civil disabilities, and are excluded from offices of trust and power. Surely no Protestant in his senses can seriously contend that persons so situated are fit to be privy councillors, for instance, and intrusted with the secrets of State !

"The Church of Rome has been well described as a foreign monarchy grasping at universal dominion. Nor is this Antichristian monarchy at all scrupulous as to the means it employs for attaining its end. If this circumstance were borne in mind when speaking of the civil rights and privileges of Romanists, we should be spared many crudities that are often uttered upon this subject.

"Since Romanism is irreconcileably antagonistic to Protestantism, and cherishes towards it the most deadly hatred,* Romanists must be dealt with accordingly. The law of self-preservation requires that they should be kept in subjection, and not placed on the same footing with those who are friendly to Protestantism, and acknowledge no foreign allegiance.

*For proof of this hostility, see the recent speech of Lord Arundel in the House of Commons.

"We are sometimes told that the best way to silence Romanists and render them harmless, nay more, to convert them into loyal subjects, is to give them power and put them in places of trust. Such persons might as well argue that the most effectual way to put the Devil to flight is not to resist but to give place to him. Our greatest statesmen have been infatuated enough to act upon this absurd principle. And what has been the consequence? All their measures of concession for conciliating Romanists and tranquillizing Ireland have turned out signal failures, and entirely disappointed their expectations. This is precisely what was predicted by those who were acquainted with the genius of Popery, and exercised their common sense.

"The subject on which I have ventured to address you is one of considerable importance. It is one, moreover, on which many Protestants labour under great misconceptions, and seem to take leave of their reasoning faculties, for their arguments are puerile in the extreme. They are usually based upon false assumptions, such, for instance, as that Romanists are fellow-Christians, holding the head, and retaining the fundamentals of Christianity; and that they are fellow-subjects whose loyalty is only impaired by unjust restrictions.* But as their idolatry nullifies their professed allegiance to Christ, so the relation in which they stand to a foreign potentate, neutralizes their allegiance to the Sovereign of these realms.

"Allow me to add, in conclusion, I hope you will reconsider this subject. I am inclined to think you have expressed yourself somewhat inadvertently in your paper of the 9th inst., and that the conclusion you have arrived at is not the result of mature and deliberate reflection. It is necessary sometimes to caution our friends against making undue concessions to Romanists, for they are very adroit in turning admissions in their favour to the best account. We need, therefore, be very careful how we make them.

"I am, Sir, your obedient, faithful Servant,

"AMICUS PROTESTANS."

* The following may be taken as a specimen of the reasoning sometimes used by persons calling themselves Protestants, and professing attachment to the Established Church :

“I look upon my Roman Catholic brethren as fellow-subjects and fellow-Christians, believers in the same God, and partners in the same redemption. Speculative differences in some points of faith with me are of no account. They and I have but one religion-the religion of Christianity. Therefore, as children of the same father, as travellers in the same road, and seekers of the same salvation, why not love each other as brothers ? It is no part of Protestantism to persecute Catholics and without justice to the Catholics there can be no security for the Protestant Establishment: as a friend, therefore, to the permanency of this Establishment, to the prosperity of the country, and the justice due to my Catholic brethren, I shall cheerfully give my vote that the Bill be committed."-From a Speech by Dr. John Law. See "The Churchman's Monthly Review” for 1845, pp. 507, 533.