afterwards forgotten. PILGRIMAGES to distant holy places were hit upon as a strong means to employ the minds and enslave the affections of numbers; houses, as that of the Virgin at Loretto, were even said to descend from heaven to receive the sacred enthusiasm of men; and CRUSADES, those preposterous and tremendous wars, whose details are filled with the most exquisite miseries, and most abhorrent crimes and licentiousness, were promoted, as potent means of employing the power and exhausting the treasures of kings. In those crusades, millions of miserable wretches, men, women, and children-the low, the ignorant, the idle, the dissolute—after wandering from kingdom to kingdom, the wonder and horror of the inhabitants, were consumed; and from those crusades in return, loads of relics were poured out of Syria over all Europe.

All kinds of CEREMONIES and FESTIVALS were imported from paganism for the same end. AURICULAR CONFESSION was invented, by which the clergy became the keepers of the consciences of the whole world; and the spiritual tyrants, not merely of the weak and the wicked, but of every one capable of a sense of shame or of fear. INDULGENCES were granted for the commission of crimes, and past sins pardoned for money and gifts of lands :—and PURGATORY! that most subtle and profitable invention of priestcraft, was contrived, to give the church power over both living and dead. Thus was the religion of Christ completely disfigured by pagan ceremonies, and made to sanction all wickedness for the sake of gain. The very CELEBRATION OF WORSHIP was ordered to be in LATIN; an unknown tongue to the great mass of those who heard it, so that they were reduced not only to feed on the chaff and garbage of priestly fables, but in the very temple of God himself to fill

themselves with mere wind and empty sounds. The bread was taken from the children and given to the dogs. MASS was invented-that splendid piece of mummery, which, filling the eyes while it enlightened not the mind, was at once an instrument of keeping the people in ignorance; of fixing them fast by the imagination to the hollow trunk of formality; and of filling the pockets of the priests, by whom it was never performed without a fee ;-for the souls of the dead paid more or less according to the imagined need. For many a great sinner masses were established for ever; and whole lordships were given to the church, to support chapels and chantries for the peace of souls that were already beyond rescue, or need of redemption. Every prayer and paternoster had its price. Thus was heaven, earth, and all therein turned into a source of beastly gain. The rage for dominion in the popes, says Mosheim, was accompanied by a most insatiable avarice. All the provinces of Europe were drained to enrich those spiritual tyrants, who were perpetually gaping after new accessions of wealth.

Another mode of influence was, constituting churches ASYLUMS for robbers and murderers; another, that dark one of EXCOMMUNICATION; another, the borrowing of ORDEALS from the pagans; another, the right of PATRONAGE; and, lastly, the terrors of the INQUI

SITION.

Such were the multiplied means employed for the monopoly of all the wealth, power, and honour of the universe by this infamous race of vampyres; and we have but too many instances of their determination to quench and keep down knowledge in their treatment of Bacon, Petre d'Abano, Arnold of Villa Nuova, and Galileo; to say nothing of the reformers, whom they regarded as their natural enemies, and destroyed

without mercy. an everlasting reward of indignation for its attempts to crush into imbecility the human mind, and to insult it in its weakness with the most pitiful baubles and puerilities.

Mankind owes to the Roman church

And for what end were all these outrages on humanity, these mockeries of every thing great,-these blasphemies of every thing holy, perpetrated? That they might wallow, undisturbed, in the deepest mire of vice and sensuality, and heap upon those they had deluded and stripped of property, of liberty and of mind, insult and derision. Let every man who hesi

tates to set his hand to the destruction of state religions, look on this picture of all enormities that can disgrace our nature, and reflect that such is the inevitable tendency of all priestcraft. Is it said we see nothing so bad now? And why? Because man has got the upper hand of his tyrant, and keeps him in awe, not because the nature of priestcraft is altered; and yet, let us turn but our eyes to Catholic countries, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the scene is lamentable; and even in our own country, where free institutions check presumption, and the press terrifies many a monster from the light of day,- -we behold things which make our hearts throb with indignation.

I had intended to give some specimens of papal lust, gluttony, and other infamous habits, but I turn from them in disgust; for those who seek them, ecclesiastical history is full. I shall only devote a few pages to Romish arrogance and atrocities, and then dismiss this Harlot of the Seven Hills.

CHAPTER XIII.

POPISH ARROGANCE AND ATROCITIES.

Unless to Peter's Chair the viewless wind
Must come and ask permission where to blow,
What further empire would it have?—for now
A ghostly Domination, unconfined

As that by dreaming bards to love assigned,
Sits there in sober truth-to raise the low,
Perplex the wise, the strong to overthrow-
Through earth and heaven to bind and to unbind!
Resist the thunder quails thee!-crouch-rebuff
Shall be thy recompense! from land to land
The ancient thrones of Christendom are stuff
For occupation of a magic wand,

And 't is the Pope that wields it;-whether rough
Or smooth his front, our world is in his hand!

WORDSWORTH.

We have seen, in the progress of this volume, that arrogance and atrocity are prominent and imperishable features in the priestly character; and it might be imagined that instances had been given in various ages and nations which could not be surpassed: but if we consider the fierce and audacious exhibition of those qualities in the Romish priests; the greatness and extent of the kingdoms over which they exercised them; and the mild and unassuming nature of the religion they professed to be the teachers of, it must be confessed that the world has no similar examples to present. The papal church seemed actuated by a

perfect furor and madness of intolerance, haughty dictation, and insolent cruelty. In the 12th century the pope proclaimed himself LORD OF THE UniVERSE; and that neither prince nor bishop possessed any power but what was derived from him; in the 14th he, on one occasion, at a great dinner, ordered Dandolo, the Venetian ambassador, to be chained under the table like a dog. In 1155 the pope insisted on the celebrated emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, holding his stirrup, at the emperor's own coronation; a proposal at first rejected with disdain, and which led to contests of a most momentous nature. Some writers affirm that his successor, having compelled the emperor to submit, trod upon his neck, and obliged him to kiss his foot while the proud prelate repeated, from Psalm xci.-" Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under foot." Our great poet receives it as fact.

Black Demons hovering o'er his mitred head,
To Cæsar's successor the pontiff spake ;
"Ere I absolve thee, stoop! that on thy neck
Levelled with earth this foot of mine may tread."
Then he who to the altar had been led,

He, whose strong arm the Orient could not check,
He who had held the Soldan at his beck,

Stooped, of all glory disinherited,

And even the common dignity of man!
Amazement strikes the crowd.

WORDSWORTH.

In the eighth century the humiliating ceremony of kissing the pope's toe was introduced. In 1077 the famous pope, Gregory VII., compelled the emperor, Henry IV., to do penance for his resistance to his monstrous claims. The unhappy monarch passed the Alps in a severe winter; waited on the pontiff at Canusium, where, unmindful of his dignity, he stood