as she never felt more deeply responsible for the use she makes of her own pen, though during many long years it has been her daily fervent prayer that whatever she writes amiss, however good the intention, may be at once and for ever forgotten. Having been much gratified lately, and most agreeably surprised, by the very favourable reception given to the volume. she recently dedicated to her nieces, "Popish Legends and Bible Truths," in which all the thoughts or anecdotes that seemed more peculiarly to bear on the subject of English Romanism were recorded, the author has been induced to follow up the subject by embodying in a fictitious narrative, what she knows to be true, of the irreconcilable hostility with which the Italian school of superstition looks upon the moral principles and domestic peace of a happy English fire-side. As the machinations of Popish emissaries to effect a division of faith and of feeling between families, have been hitherto chiefly directed, and chiefly successful, among ladies, generally very juvenile ones, it is hoped that the author may not be considered presumptuous in attempting thus to warn the young against being ensnared, who have not all had the same sad opportunities as

herself, to observe the rise, progress, and most calamitous termination of a taste for the excitements of Romanism.*

Cardinal Pole offered the Pope in his day to subjugate England by "dealing with the consciences of dying men;" but though that plan is by no means now neglected, much more is done in the present time by dealing with the consciences of richly endowed ladies. The author can assure her young readers, and she entreats. them seriously to consider the statement, which is very seriously and sorrowfully made, that among her own personal acquaintances there are already those who have left their heartbroken parents for ever, those who are now buried in foreign convents, those who have relinquished their beautiful estates, those who have beggared themselves of all they ever possessed, those who are shut up in a lunatic. asylum, and those who have died in such a fever of popish perplexity, that the doctors declared, had they lived it would have been in a state of derangement.

All this began, like the fall of Eve, from mere unjustifiable curiosity, excited by those who wish to mislead the inquirer.

A young girl is induced by a proselyting friend to go and hear the "most delightful music" at a Popish chapel, and to visit in a popish house, where religion, she is assured, is the subject of all others that shall never be mentioned to her; and there she becomes acquainted with a Romish priest, who is warranted never to allude to religious differences, and who lends her books that she is told any Protestant might read with pleasure. The author was told last winter by a young lady of fifteen, the only child of an esteemed landed proprietor, that when walking with her governess lately in a public garden, they were stopped by a "Sister of Charity," who offered them some tracts to read, and said as she presented them, that if they wished for an explanation, they had only to ring at the bell of her convent, and to ask for "Sister Margaret." Some less prudent young ladies might have been tempted by the romance of such an adventure to go, and neither fathers, brothers, nor legislators can adequately protect a girl from such devices unless she also protects herself by avoiding them. As the first step in all such cases is made very easy and agreeable, the author has endeavoured, in these

volumes, to exemplify the end to which such beginnings lead. Few young ladies in the whirl of education have leisure systematically to study those important questions, which will now be constantly obtruded unasked on their notice, but which involve the whole happiness for time and eternity of themselves, as well as the whole peace of their parents and relatives therefore the author has endeavoured in this narrative, as well as in her previous work on Popish Legends, to place the result of many years' prayerful reading in a small compass before those she earnestly wishes to serve, if they will favour her with their kind consideration.

It is hoped that the strong good sense of English minds may long continue to be their salutary protection against the Church of "Our Lady Star of the Sea!" a name much more fit for the Arabian Nights than for Christian teachers, but which is very attractive to young lovers of the imaginative and picturesque, as well as the whole gorgeous paraphernalia of Romish pageantry. The author was favoured with a description lately of a Popish dignitary entering one of the provincial towns of England in state, the first carriage drawn by four

grey horses, and another following. At a levee which ensued the ladies kissed hands! and the clergymen knelt. Such more than royal homage claimed and bestowed had so bewildering an effect on the imagination of some excitable spectators, that several Protestant ladies conformed to this new custom, yielded to this total prostration of female dignity, and kissed the diamond ring, emblematical of popish authority. In return for their almost delirious homage a benignant hope was expressed, not very likely to be disappointed, that they shall soon become members of the Popish flock. There is a keen canvass constantly going on to induce young people to attend such dramatic scenes; the author herself has been frequently invited to witness them; but the doing so is at a hazard which nothing can justify any one for incurring. There is a strange influence in vast pretensions which few have the moral courage to resist; and if a Grand Mufti of London and Westminster, bringing his diploma, were to appear in England, claiming all the honours due to Grand Mufti-ism, the safest plan would be to avoid him, as those once in his presence, if invited by a card inscribed in large characters "To MEET THE GRAND