those who love their Roman Catholic countrymen, and who wish to make an effort to heal the divisions of Ireland, send in their contributions either to Messrs. Curry and Co., Sackvillestreet or to the Rev. William Magee, 9, Upper Buckingham-street, who kindly acts as Secretary to the Committee, which was appointed for the circulation of the tract on the Creeds. 66 Let us have the contributions and prayers of good men, the platform of the Rotunda one day in the week, for the month of December, or whatever time we can arrange, and I trust that the knowledge of the glad tidings of great joy shall make this Christmas a happy Christmas" to many of our Roman Catholic friends in Dublin, through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ; and open a field for diffusing the blessings of his great salvation. And that, as his truth is calculated to "give peace" on earth, it may, through his infinite mercy, accomplish that which none but God can do, and that is, give peace in Ireland. I remain, beloved brethren, To the Editor of the Protestant Magazine. SIR,-Popery is the same in all ages, whether in the sixteenth or nineteenth century, unchangeable and unchanged; being based in error, it is supported by fraud and strengthened by treachery. A case that occurred in Kennington, November 18th and 19th, prove that the Romish system deserves this character. Early in October last, the Rev. G. Chute, Curate of St. Mark's, Kennington, was called on by Captain Wills, of Regent's-street, Lambeth, to sign a pension certificate for his aged mother, Mrs. Chapman. When he saw her, he signed the document, and promised to call in about two hours to read and pray with her. In the mean time, the priest was forced into her room by her son, Captain Wills. She showed so much reluctance to his visit, that the man went away. Mr. Chute, at her request, administered the Lord's supper, and continued his visits regularly to October 13th, when he asked me to take his place; and in five weeks I visited her eight times; and being absent eight days during the five weeks, I was sent for. November 7th, Miss Wills was in the room while I read and prayed; and Sunday, the 15th, Captain Wills was present. So far, there was no opposition to my visits; but when the time of death approached, it was the time for Papists to put forth their strength. was, November 18th, I called on Mrs. Chapman, and on entering the room found the four Miss Wills present. The elder rudely thrust a Missal in my face, saying, "These are the prayers we are using with grandmama ;" and on repeating this, I told her, that "I did not use a form of prayer." While reading and praying, the four ladies were sneering and making offensive remarks. When I was leaving the room, the ladies asked their grandmother some question I did not hear; but her answer "Then now let me alone," when they all four laughed. I thought it my duty to rebuke them, outside the door, for levity in a sick room before a dying lady. They replied, by calling me the most opprobrious names, and using the vilest language. The next day, I called on Mrs. Wood, the lady of the house, and learning that Dr. Doyle, priest of the London-road Chapel, had been with her; and feeling satisfied as to the state of mind of the dying lady, and not wishing to create a disturbance, I did not go up. When leaving the house, Captain Wills, his son, and four daughters, attacked me most violently in Billingsgate vocabulary, the Captain shaking his stick in my face, and threatening to use it. Next day I applied to the magistrate at Lambeth Police Court for a summons: but the law does not interfere where the offence is committed within doors. Had he spoken thus outside the house, he could impose a fine and direct him to procure bail. The case dropped on my part. The report of my application appeared in the "Daily News," Nov. 21st. On November 30th, Captain Wills and his daughter go to the same Police Court, and state, that "the old lady was a Roman Catholic for some time; that Mr. Cuffe knew it; that he was never sent for; that he (Captain Wills) did not use threatening language to Mr. Cuffe, but acted with the greatest mildness," &c. &c. This will impose, for a time, on unsuspecting English Protestants. The theory and practice of Popery is always to deceive: such is the teaching of that depraved and demoralized system. Read the teaching of Liguori on the subject of oaths.* He says, "It is a certain and common opinion amongst all divines, that for a just cause it is lawful to use equivocation, and to confirm it with an oath." It is a just cause to attack Protestantism through one of its ministers. Captain and Miss Wills' statement is a tissue of falsehood from beginning to end, and is only an example of what Popery will be on a larger scale, should that system gain the ascendancy they look for. Mrs. Chapman was a member of my congregation, and received the sacrament often in my chapel, and declared to me, that it was "a serious trouble to her that her son had become a Roman Catholic." The lady of the house she lodged in, and others, can prove that she was a Protestant. Should not the clergy of each religious denomination be up and doing? Too long have we rested on our oars; we should be alive to the great evils of the unhallowed apostasy. What brought the priest into the old lady's room, to administer an idolatrous rite to an unconscious person? I hold it, that a Romish priest has no right to teach or minister within this realm, not being duly called of God for that purpose. I wrote this to the priest, and also offered to prove, "that the Romish *I can strongly recommend a work lately published by the Reformation Society, "Extracts from the Moral Theology of Liguori." By the Rev. R. P. Blakeney, B.A. system never saved any person, was not invented for that purpose, and had not salvation for its end." I challenged him to produce 66 one individual whose moral character was improved by leaving the Church of England and joining the Church of Rome." Who were the leaders of the Irish Rebellion, in 1798? Who was the leader of the Carrickshock massacre, in 1831? Apostates. What causes Ireland to be as she is, degraded, disreputable, and immoral ? Popery. What is lowering the moral character of England, and bringing her down to the level of the Continental nations? Popery. What has brought the present fearful_calamity of famine and disease in Ireland? Popery. Our God has shown his anger; but let us prove our sorrow by an amendment of life. Let the clergy of the Establishment preach steadily against the soul-destroying system of Popery. It is a shame for us to be still and let our hands hang down amidst so much evil. The clergy should carry out the excellent advice given by that most exemplary Prelate, the Bishop of Winchester, in his luminous charge to his clergy in 1844. The advancement of Popery, and consequent lowering of religion, demands our earnest attention; and my clerical brethren will excuse the appeal made by an humble clergyman to their consciences. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, TENISON CUFfe, Minister of Carlisle Episcopal Chapel, Kennington. December 15. PROTESTANT ALLIANCE FOR THE WESTERN COUNTIES OF SOMERSET, DEVON, AND CORNWALL. MEASURES are now in progress for the formation of this Alliance, and a Meeting is intended to be held at Exeter (D. v.) on or before the 12th of January next, for the purpose of completing it. The general objects proposed are— 1. To maintain the Protestant principles of the Constitution in the administration of public affairs. I would beg to recommend Petitions to Parliament, praying that inquiry may be made into the matter of the coalition betwixt Her Majesty's Ministers and the convicted conspirator O'Connell, and that such steps may be taken therein for the safety of the country and the vindication of the honour and dignity of Her Majesty's crown, as to the wisdom of Parliament may seem expedient. Repeal of the Maynooth Endowment Act. I would further beg leave to propose Petitions to Parliament at the very first opening of the session, for the Repeal of the Maynooth Endowment Act. The protest ought to be kept up. AN OLD CORRESPONDENT. THE NEW LIBERAL POPE AND BIBLE SOCIETIES. MANY say, a new era has dawned on the Papacy by the accession of the present Pontiff. Whatever reforms in tariffs, police, or railways may have graced his accession, no change seems to have taken place in the hatred of Rome to the Bible that speaks her doom. The following is from the Pope's encyclical letter. The translation is an authorized one : "For you already well know, venerable brethren, that there are other deceits and frightful errors, with which the children of this age sharply contend, against the Catholic religion, and the Divine authority and regulations of the Church, and endeavour to trample under foot all laws, as well of the Church as of the State. Such is the tendency of those wicked enterprizes which have been undertaken against this Roman See of blessed Peter, in which Christ laid the impregnable foundation of his Church. Such is the aim of those secret Societies which have emerged from their obscurity to devastate and destroy all that is most venerable both in the Church and in the State, and which have been repeatedly anathematized and condemned by the Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, in their apostolic letter, which anathemas we, in the plenitude of our apostolic authority, confirm, and command to be diligently obeyed. "Such is the object of those most crafty Bible Societies, which, reviving an old device of the heretics, do not cease to put forth an immense number of copies of the books of the Sacred Scriptures, printed in various vulgar tongues, and often filled with false and perverse interpretations, contrary to the rules of the Holy Church, which they continually circulate at an immense expense, and force upon all sorts of persons, even of the rudest sort, with a view that, rejecting the divine traditions, the teaching of the Fathers, and the authority of the Church, they should all interpret for themselves, and by their own private judgment, the Word of God; and so, perverting the sense, be led into grievous errors; which Societies, Gregory XVI., in whose place, though most unworthy, we are now placed, emulating the example of his predecessors, vehemently condemned in his apostolic letters; and we desire to join as eagerly in the reprobation." At page 34, reference is thus made to the secular power of princes, to be used for the good of the Church : : "We trust that the princes, our dearest sons in Christ, remembering in their piety and religion, that the kingly authority was given to them, not only for the government of the world, but more especially for the protection of the Church, and that whilst we maintain the cause of the Church, maintain that also of their kingdom and of their safety, that so they may hold their provinces in undisturbed possession, will aid our common wishes and endeavours with their power and authority, and defend the liberty and safety of the Church, that the righthand of Christ may defend their kingdom." THE IDOLATRY AND BLASPHEMIES OF THE NEW POPE. IN the encyclical letter of the present Pope, Pius IX., addressed to all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops, occurs the following. We give it from the authorized translation put forth with the sanction of Thomas, Bishop of Olena, V. A. L. The passage we refer to, is towards the end, p. 37. We give it without note or comment; we only ask our countrymen, is this the Popery which your rulers are willing to endow!! "That all these things may tend, as we desire, to a happy and prosperous end, let us draw near with confidence, venerable brethren, to the throne of grace, and with one mind, in the humility of our heart, let us pour forth our continual and earnest supplications to the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolations, that, through the merits of his only-begotten Son, he will deign to bestow upon our weakness an abundance of all heavenly gifts; that, with his Omnipotent power, he will vanquish our assailants, and that he will everywhere cause faith, piety, devotion, and peace, largely to increase, that so all enemies and errors being removed, his holy Church may rejoice in tranquillity the most desirable, and there may be one fold, and one shepherd. But in order that our most merciful God may the more readily incline his ear to our prayers, and may grant that which we implore, let us ever have recourse to the intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God, the Immaculate Virgin Mary, our sweetest mother, our mediatrix, our advocate, our surest hope, and firmest reliance, than whose patronage nothing is more potent, nothing more effectual with God. Let us invoke also the Prince of the Apostles, to whom Christ himself delivered the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whom he declared to be the foundation-stone of his Church, against which the gates of hell should never prevail, and his Co-apostle Paul, and all the saints of Heaven who now possess the reward of their labours, a crown of glory-that through their prayers the abundant treasures of the Divine mercy may descend on the whole Christian world." LYING WONDERS OF POPERY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. "Our own THE "Tablet" newspaper of Nov. 14, 1846, has an article on Times," one chief object of which seems to be, to pioneer the way to a general reception for some pretended miracles alleged recently to have been performed by Romish relics, in our own and other countries. The writer on the article observes, "In addition to many other signs, most worthy of grave and serious attention, it is a pregnant fact, that one has lately been elected by Divine Providence to rule over the whole militant Church, of whose future course, it is more than whispered amongst men, that there have been secret and solemn revelations." We leave our readers to form their own ideas of this paragraph, and also of what follows; and would only express our earnest hope and prayer, that whilst thus superstition and impiety is permitted to rear its head again amongst us, they will be the more abundant in their prayers and efforts to oppose error, and build up the truth, and to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." "At this crisis-to resume the thread of our remarks--when so many hearts are kindling with the same hidden fire, and faith is beginning to reclaim its long-lost power, it cannot be matter of surprise that another phenomenon should accompany the movement to which it is capable of imparting a further impulse. Extraordinary manifestations of the Divine Power and Presence, which may be anticipated at any moment, and of which the history of the Church in all times presents so many sublime examples, may be almost expected to attend the events of this age, if we have rightly judged their solemn purport. To re-establish the empire of faith in a country which has long slumbered in an almost universal forgetfulness of the mysteries of revelation, such manifestations would appear to be necessary. There are, indeed, many who doubt whether the restoration of such a country as our own, whose annals during three centuries are almost a continuous history of outrages and profanations, can still be possible. The sacrileges of the sixteenth century—the deliberate blasphemies still preserved and repeated in the 31st Article, and in such books as the Anglican Homilies' -the desecrated altars of God, placed by the command of pseudo-Bishops in the public ways, that they might be trodden under foot by the unbelieving multitude-the decrees of the Legislature denouncing death against those who should offer the adorable sacrifice the martyrdoms of Christ's faithful ministers and confessorsthe Liturgical forms proclaiming the most sacred mysteries of Christianity to be blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits;'- all these are, indeed, fearful obstacles to the conversion of our unfortunate country; for there would seem to be more hope for those who have never confessed the name of Jesus, than for those who, professing to know him, have crucified him afresh by impieties at which a Jew or a Mahomedan might blush. But if England has fallen more deeply, she has also been prayed for more ardently, more unceasingly, than any other nation. And let it ever be remembered, as a sign full of consolation and encouragement, that never, from the moment of her apostasy to this hour, has there been a time when the Spirit of God sought fruit on this decayed vine, and sought it in vain. Each succeeding generation has added its appointed number of converts, men, women, and children, to those who were predestinated to receive the true faith. England has never been wholly abandoned. And doubtless many, who were baptized into the one fold, though by alien hands, and who lived and died in an involuntary ignorance of the religion of the Gospel, have nevertheless been gathered, through the mercies of God, into the Church in heaven. "We may not, then, be over san guine, but there is abundant ground for hope, and this hope is fortified by the events of almost every successive week and month. There is one amongst us, who in his judgments mingles mercy, and whose purposes cannot be frustrated, even by our own waywardness. 66 Within these few days his presence has been manifested in the chief city of our empire by one of those touching events which console, while they startle. "One who had been abandoned by the most eminent of our surgeons, as beyond the reach of his art, has been miraculously healed by the relics of a saint whom God permits to prophesy even in death.' "With the sanction of the Vicar Apostolic of London, and accompanied by an appointed course of devotions, the healing relic was applied, and a formidable and inveterate cancer, for which complete extirpation was the only remedy, was so perfectly cured at the end of the Novena as not even to leave a trace. "When the saints begin once more to exert thus visibly their power amongst us, we may well refuse to doubt, that blessings are in store for England." MISCELLANEOUS. MINISTERIAL ALLIANCE WITH O'CONNELL. Many things indicate that there subsists an understanding betwixt Lord John Russell and O'Connell. The Repeal magistrates are reinstated in the commission of the peace, including O'Connell, and others; and John O'Connell has been appointed a Deputy-Lieutenant. Besides, the members of the O'Connell family are constant guests at the table of the Lord-Lieutenant. There cannot be a doubt that O'Connell has a great ascendancy in the councils of the British empire. This appears to be the dangerous influence against which Protestants should now direct their efforts. It should be remembered that O'Connell has the command of seventy out of one hundred seats in Parliament for Ireland. The heads of the different political parties seem all disposed to favour Popery. Protestants, there |