INVOCATION. OH! Truth! immortal Truth! on what wild ground And the great multitude doth crouch and bear Yet, ever and anon, from thy bright quiver, Oh! might it burn for ever! But in vain- Who from men's souls draw their dishonest gain. W. H. INTRODUCTION. BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. THE following delineation of Priestcraft, by Howitt, the Quaker poet, is devoted to a very interesting and prolific subject. Mr. Howitt's volume is designed to aid in the grand modern employment of "turning the world upside down;" and doubtless it will contribute to that glorious achievement. It is a book of condensation, and comprises a great variety of historical facts, all brought, as a resistless battery, to storm the citadel of English Priestcraft. The purpose is good, and the execution in many respects successful; but Mr. Howitt, in the ardour of the contest, has sometimes mistaken his friends for his foes; or rather has fancied that his strongest coadjutors are traitors to the cause of liberty, truth, and religion. This history of Priestcraft among the ancient and modern idolaters in the various countries of the world is a concise but clear development of the rise and progress of that unholy domination, which priests, in all ages, constantly grasped and perpetuated. "Whether the Arkite theory be correct or not, nothing is more certain than that paganism had one common origin in the early ages of the world," after the Flood and there is no doubt that it was invented by knaves, who first contrived to brutalize the people, and then to exalt themselves upon the ignorance which they had originated and cherished. Of the three prominent exhibitions of Priestcraft in this volume— the cause, the methods, the criminality, and the mischiefs have been identical, only modified and varying as other circumstances have operated to aggrandize or diminish the arrogance and rapacity of those unrelenting despots. The priests of Baal, and Astarte, and Moloch, in the East; the priests of Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, in Cyprus, Greece, and Rome; the priests of the papal "ten horns of the beast," these modern Babylonian astrologers and magicians, and their "regular successors "the shrine-making priests connected with "the Church of England," established by act of parliament, and in alliance with the state, all bear the same general characteristics. They are the offspring of human corruption-they govern through tyrannic usurpation-they are dressed nearly in the same official exterior robes-they are supported by the same ungodly means-they avow similar unholy objects, their own lordly advancement, and the degradation of their vassals-and the miseries which they have inflicted have been of the same quality, and, as far as other circumstances admitted, co-extensive. There is one fact, however, which, in reference to Mr. Howitt's peculiar object, the exposure of the abominations in the English and Irish state hierarchies, it is astonishing that he should have omitted, and which has seldom been brought up in bold relief before the public eye; we mean, the comparative barbarity of the old popish monks and friars in England, with the cruelty of their more modern successors the nominal Protestant ecclesiastics, who are the mere creatures of the civil government. The Apostle John, when in Patmos he saw the scarlet-robed Babylonish mother of harlots drunk with the blood of saints and the martyrs of Jesus, wondered with great admiration; and well he might, for who can recount the number of Christians whom she has slaughtered; who can measure the blood which she has gorged? and with which she is not yet satisfied,-while, like the craving horse-leech, she still cries, "Give, give!" But did he not also behold in his vision, and marvel at the beldam's eldest daughter? For it is a surprising fact, that in Britain, the Protestant hierarchy, so called, has been the wicked cause of indescribably more religious persecution, torment, and bloodshed than even the beast himself. We justly denounce the arrogance of Henry VIII.; but did not James I., Charles I., Charles II., and James II. exhibit equal despotic malignity? We call Mary the bloody queen, and she deserves the appropriate title; but was not Elizabeth her own sister, "whose crimes exceeded the other fury's thoughts?" We execrate Gardiner and Bonner; but were Aylmer, Laud, Sheldon, and scores of others one particle inferior in injustice, cruelty, irreligion, and every other crime? What peopled North America?-the racks and tortures, the famine and wretchedness, the robberies and prisons, the sufferings and deaths, occa-t sioned by incessant religious persecution; not papists pursuing and exterminating their detested heretics; but Protestant priests, with popish hearts, destroying their own avowed brethren. În reference to Britain, where Roman butchers slaughtered hundreds—their Episcopalian sons tormented thousands. There are Marian fires and Laudean mutilations-there is a Parisian massacre, and the puritan's prison, all England-there is the papal slaughter-house, Ireland; and Scotland, the Episcopal aceldama-there is the Jesuit revocation of the edict of Nantz, and its more flagrant counterpart; the impious acts of uniformity, with the sacramental test, and the other Babylonish methods of compelling consciences, the fiery furnace, and the den of lions, called the Bishop's Court. But we desist from additional and not less appalling parallels, probably in the sight of God still more criminal; except that, like the popish priests in all the dominions governed by the pontiff of Rome, nine-tenths of the Episcopalian priests in England have ever been, as they are at this day, the unflinching stanch supporters of the kingcraft, and the oppression and miseries of the people; and the unyielding opponents of every measure which may extend the rights of man, the principles of civil and religious freedom, genuine intelligence, the melioration of society, and the progress of the gospel of Christ. In short, Priestcraft is a monster despatched from hell to earth, which, like the fabled siren, first charms to sleep, and then devours its unpitied victims. We heartily unite with Mr. Howitt in hoping that every Englishman will do his duty,-chain the monster, tie a huge millstone round his neck, and cast him into the depths of the sea, to be found no more at all for ever. But we must also remember, that the spirit and principle which induce men to arrogate to themselves exclusive Christianity—which haughtily asserts, that no man can become a “member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," unless an Episcopalian priest makes a cross on his forehead-that no man belongs to the covenant of mercy, or can receive the grace of God, unless it is confirmed to him, and communicated through Episcopal fingers—that no man is authorized to preach the gospel, and that he is a "wolf in sheep's clothing," unless he can prove his regular succession from Peter, through that horde of profligate banditti called Popes of Rome, down to that exemplary son of the mother of harlots, the Bishop of Derry; and that modern "hierophantic" persecutor, and marvellously spiritually-minded man, John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury-and that all evangelical preaching, all Christian ordinances, all scriptural institutions, all faith, all hope, all love, all knowledge, all peace, all obedience, and all piety in possession and prospect, are a delusion, utterly null and void, unless they are connected with an abridged popish liturgy, and an unscriptural form of church government and discipline the temper and resolution which actuate priests to assert, as "without error," these antichristian dogmas; in other times, in different circumstances, and proudly maintained by men unsanctified and unrestrained by Divine Providence, would produce a re-exhibition of all the most direful and sanguinary horrors, which Antiochus or Dioclesian, Gregory or Innocent, Bonner or Laud, or even Dominic himself |