what does it propose? It proposes to make compulsory what Prison Boards have now permissive power to do; to coerce them under a penalty to appoint a chaplain-or rather to acknowledge as chaplain a priest who will be the nominee of the Romish Bishop, in every prison where there are ten or more prisoners professing to belong to the Romish Church. This priest is to be an officer of the prison; he is to have the status of a prison chaplain; he is to be entitled to a salary drawn from prison funds, varying according to the number of prisoners of his church, from £200 to £25. He is to have all facilities afforded to him for celebrating mass, and the other ceremonies of the Romish Church within the prison; and the Romish inmates are not to have it in their option to be present or absent as they please from the services which he performs. Absolute powers are given to the Secretary of State to enact regulations which "shall provide for the attendance and reverent behaviour" of Roman Catholic prisoners on the priestly functions of the Romish chaplain.

Whatever its pretext, this is, in plain terms, the object and effect of the Bill. It has been framed with the help of subtle counsel, and only the velvet paw is put forward. The mass is not once mentioned. Nor is there a word in it about Romanists, as distinguished from prisoners of other non-established religious persuasions, for all of whom it provides speciously and with an air of quasi impartiality. But every one who knows anything of the history of our prison legislation during the last few years, can trace here the restless scheming of the Romish party, so as not to be deceived by this benevolent pretext. The invitation held out to Protestant Dissenters to become State stipendiaries in the shape of Prison Chaplaincies, shows the mask sufficiently to defeat the object; it gratuitously insults the convictions entertained by many of them; and ungraciously ignores the unpaid services which all of them alike have hitherto rendered most willingly in prison, visitation and instruction over the kingdom, and in which, in time to come, they will doubtless be ready, from Christian impulses and without fee or remuneration, to bear their part.

Here, then, is a bill to endow a Romish priest out of public funds in every large town in the kingdom-a bill which, by turning every large prison into a masshouse-its priest being paid at the public expense-will largely increase our prison assessments. Is the country prepared for this? If Prison Boards do not bestir themselves, it may soon be too late for them to avert the mischief threatened. Estimating the inmates of English prisons by the return for 1868, there are at least sixty prisons in England in which this Act would place a salaried Romish chaplain : 4 to receive a minimum salary of £200, 5 of £150, 8 of £100, while, in a large number of prisons, priests would receive salaries ranging from £100 to £25. Were other denominations to avail themselves of the provisions of the Bill, the expenses of prison management would be enormous. In other ways, as the inevitable increase of the number of warders, the prison expenses would certainly be augmented by the operation of such a Bill.

Judging of Romanism by its fruits-looking, for example, at the tendency to insubordination and outrage in Ireland, which make it the perplexity of all British statesmen; looking at the effects of Romanism in France, Italy, Spain, every country where it holds sway, and where also the statistics of immorality and crime reveal a painful state of things-we are entitled to say that, while wrong in principle, it is a blunder, in point of policy, to subsidise a system which is so powerful to foster crime, and must therefore be impotent to cure it. Yet, were this bill passed, it would most likely become a stepping-stone to the demand of endowments to Romish priests elsewhere than within prison walls.

But we also lift an earnest protest against this bill because of the violence that it may do to conscience. However the fact may be accounted for, it is true that a large proportion of Roman Catholic prisoners do not wish to have the professional services of their priests. The return of 1862 shows that there were prisons in England in which not one of a large number of Roman

Catholics requested visitation by a priest. In many others the proportion of cases in which the wish was expressed was very small. Out of 173 Popish prisoners in Glasgow only 3 made request for a priest's visit in three months, and in Edinburgh Prison not one of 57 Popish prisoners did so. It is quite a conceivable case that an unhappy convict, born and baptized within the pale of the Romish Church, may, before or after he crosses the threshold of a prison, get new light on matters of religion. And is not a prisoner's conscience to be respected? Has he ceased to be a responsible being? If he wishes to absent himself from mass, which he now sees to be idolatry, is he to be forced to witness it? Yet, if we read this bill correctly, it gives authority to the Secretary of State to enact regulations which would put it in the power of any priest to coerce the conscience and over-ride the scruples of a convict in such circumstances. This were surely an offence against liberty of conscience not to be tolerated in this free country. We object, therefore, to the dangerous powers which the bill proposes to confer on the Secretary of State.

It is earnestly hoped that public bodies will at once send petitions to the House of Commons against this measure. Let men of influence throughout the land—all leal-hearted Protestants-who value our free Constitution, and are prepared to resist the grasping spirit and dangerous encroachments of the Romish hierarchy give their representatives in Parliament to know, that the great heart of this country is yet sound in its love of the Bible, and in its determined hostility to Romanism.

THE BLESSINGS OF BIBLE KNOWLEDGE.

THE history of Pagan nations is an instructive study, though it is little else than a narrative of crime. It teaches us how helpless man is to guide himself in the path of virtue and happiness by his own unaided powers it teaches us how much we are indebted to the Bible-how much of our social advantages we owe to its pure spirit, which has breathed over the chaos of nations, and brought order, light, beauty, and fruitfulness from the shapeless void: it teaches us that 'the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places,' where the endeared names of husband, wife, parent, child, speak with a tenderness to our hearts which we cannot appreciate, unless we have traced in the history of the past how little these ties have been valued. No author sets this in a stronger light than Tacitus, in his 'Morals of the Roman Empire.' The hand of that masterly historian must have trembled as he delineated the picture. There you will find a narrative of all that can shock the tenderest sensibilities of our nature, all that man can perpetrate in crime, all that the arch-enemy can bring up from his dark kingdom to disturb and ruin. Suspicion, massacre, and licentiousness-the conspiracy of wives against their husbands, and husbands against their wives-men everywhere falling on their own sword-families whose peace is disturbed by violence, and ruined by intrigue-children sacrificed by the machinations of a mother-a wife murdering her husband for the purpose of wedding her paramour-women practised in the trade of poisoning'this is Paganism, and in the most enlightened age of Rome. But it is not Christianity. Let a man compare the present state of society in Protestant countries with the state of society under the dynasty of the Cæsars, and he cannot fail to see what the Bible has done for our social institutions. Let him go into the interior of the first and most polished families in Rome, and he will bless God for a supernatural Revelation." Obligations of the World to the Bible by Dr Spring, pp. 134-5.

THI

ROMISH IDOLS.—THE CRADLE.

HE idols and relics of Rome probably exceed in number those of any other city, ancient or modern, and the accumulated spoils of centuries of superstition-of holy hair or teeth, of bones, clothing and utensils, of dolls and puppets, of paintings by Luke and needlework by the Virgin, of nails, splinters of wood, and chains from the prisons of the Apostles, of an infinite collection of insignificant and worthless articleshave been adopted by Popes and priests as a necessary element of the true faith. The idolatry of the present age has surpassed all preceding systems in folly. Tyre and Carthage, worshippers of the brazen Moloch, were at least moderate and respectable compared to the degrading imbecility of the Roman ritual. Moses would have seen with strange contempt the graven images of the Papal city; Numa would have wondered at the degradation of his posterity. No chief Congo has so many fetiches, no Greek or Roman capital was reduced to so low a grade of religious worship, and the throngs of spectators who have annually, gathered to witness the splendid pageants of Papal idolatry can never complain that they have been disappointed in the numbers or the variety of the objects of veneration.

The artist has represented on this page one of the rare treasures of the Roman Church. Twice only in each year the cradle of the babe Christ is exhibited at the basilica of St Maria Maggiore. On Christmasday a great throng fills the ancient church; a thousand candles gleam over the dim and motley scene; incense rises in thick clouds; the softest music floats from unseen lips; and there, beneath a canopy, is placed, enclosed in a rich urn of silver and of crystal, the true cradle of Bethlehem. The music pauses, the service ends, the relic is reverently lifted up by attendant priests with awe and fear, and a stately procession moves down the nave to exhibit the cradle to all the people. The crowd presses forward to gaze; the superstitious tremble at the near approach of the Holy Manger; the Roman pickpocket abstracts the purse of the adoring convertt-nor can priest or Pope blame him for a theft less hurtful than their own unblushing fraud. No one of any intelligence believes that the Holy Cradle is anything but a deception or a delusion. Ignorance and fanaticism, cunning and avarice, are the common source of Roman idolatry. The Bambino and the Holy Cradle, the hair or clothes of the Virgin, the thorn from the crown, a piece of the true cross, of the sponge, the seamless coat, the finger of St Thomas, the under garment of the Virgin, and the endless list of relics and idols, indicate only the extreme degradation of the human intellect under the Papal rule.

The schoolmaster, it seems, is about to visit Rome, notwithstanding the severe denunciation of a Manning or the painful lamentation of a Pope. It is doubtful if the Papal city can long retain its pre-eminence as the chief centre of modern idolatry. When schools are plentiful ; when it is taught that graven images are an abomination; that a wicked priest is worse than a wicked layman; that honesty, morality, and humanity are needful even to a successor of St Peter; that Papal Rome has been for ages a den of crime, of tyranny, and of fraud-it is probable that a host of relics will be thrown into the Tiber, and a new reform sweep over the capital. Why should not the Roman people elect the next Pope in accordance with the privileges of their ancestors? -Harper's Weekly Journal (New York), March 16, 1872.

ROMISH PRIESTS IN PRISONS.

HE following address embodies facts of great importance, to which the immediate and earnest attention of Protestants should be given :

A bill entitled "Prison Ministers' Bill" has passed the House of Lords and is now in the House of Commons. The amendments in the House of Lords in no way affect the principles of the bill, but only limit by a few pounds the salaries proposed to be paid to Romish priests as chaplains and permanent officers in the prisons of England and Scotland.

The bill provides that the Act of 1863, which permitted magistrates to make such appointments, be made compulsory, and that under a severe penalty; also, that Romish priests shall be appointed and constituted chaplains to all prisons containing ten or more Roman Catholic prisoners, and when so appointed said priests shall be made " officers of such prisons," and "shall stand in the same position, as nearly as circumstances will admit, as the regularly constituted chaplain" (clause 4).

The bill also provides that if local magistrates fail to comply with the above provision, the Home Secretary shall then have power to make such appointments (clause 3). It is also proposed that the Home Secretary may make from time to time such regulations, and provide such means and facilities for the due celebration of Romish worship as he may think proper.

1. It is unconstitutional to give such power to a Home Secretary over institutions supported chiefly out of local rates, governed by the local magistracy.

2. The appointments of Popish priests does not lie with the civil authorities, but with their ecclesiastical superiors, and therefore their position is in no way analogous to the appointment of Protestant chaplains, for the former are the servants of their bishops, while the latter are the servants of the magistracy. Hence, no appointment of a Romish priest can be made but by the authority of a Romish bishop, or dismissal take place without his sanction. Instances have occurred of priests violating the prison rules where they have been appointed under the Permissory Act of 1863, and in Government prisons. Should the judgment of the Romish bishop therefore not coincide with that of the magistrate, by clause 4 of the above bill the Home Secretary would have the power of supporting the views of the Romish bishop as against the prison authorities. This is illustrated in the case now pending in Ireland, of Dr Cullen, the Poor Law Commissioners, and the Board of Education, against Priest O'Keefe.

3. Under the bill no liberty is given to a Roman Catholic prisoner to refuse the ministrations of a priest, as is provided in the Permissory Act of 1863 (sec. 3). Hence the fact of his name being entered in the prison books as a Roman Catholic on entering the prison will subject him to the services of the priest in defiance of his wishes. This gross spiritual oppression may be perpetrated within the walls of a British prison.

4. It is altogether contrary to the principles of the Protestant constitution and general morals that such appointments should take place, because the doctrines of the Church of Rome, in regard to many crimes, are such that magistrates must condemn what priests through the confessional, and by their obligations to their superiors, and by their textbooks, must teach. The general tendency of the whole teaching of the Church of Rome is not to diminish crime, but to increase it. This is amply proved by the large proportion of Roman Catholic criminals in the prisons of Great Britain, and by the statistics of crime in Roman Catholic countries. For example, the proportion of murderers to each million of the population in England in 1857 was 4, whereas in the Papal States in 1846 the proportion was 113. According to the Parliamentary returns of 1862, the proportion of Romanists to the other criminals in convict prisons was 18'6 per cent., or nearly one-fifth of the whole prisoners, whereas the Romish population in