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authority from the Pope for such Indulgences is very properly looked upon by the priests as a valuable perquisite. Other modes are also invented for the same purpose, but always on condition of performing some good works. One of these, is attending and praying at the fourteen stations of the " Via Crucis," an ingenious invention of the holy fathers, by which the same benefit is to be obtained as by a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and visiting the scenes of our Saviour's sufferings. These stations are sometimes in a Church, and sometimes not. There is one very well-known set of stations at Florence, on the side of the hill, beside the monastery, without the Porto St. Nicolo; there is one beside the hermitage, near the summit of Mount Vesuvius. A still more noted set of stations is in the interior of the Colisseum at Rome, in the centre of which is a post, on which is suspended a crown of thorns, and there is a notice inscribed, that by kissing it, two hundred days indulgence are to be obtained.

In some countries, the old method of selling written Indulgences is still maintained, and in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies this is a very profitable trade*. The Church has not in any place abandoned this plan, or lowered her demands, except from the difficulty of dis-" posing of her wares. Whoever imagines, that Indulgences are not in use in the British Isles, is greatly mistaken. They are to be had on the same conditions

* Vide page 118.

as in Italy; and in the Catholic prayer books and memorials to direct their devotions, the days are especially pointed out. In Ireland, also, there are noted places of pilgrimage and stations, where prayers are to be said to procure absolution from sin*. Crowds frequent them, and the neighbourhood is uniformly notorious for the gross debaucheries of the disburthened penitents.

This is not searching for the Catholic faith, or Catholic ceremonials, in the dreams of anchorites, the reveries of solitary enthusiasts, or the metaphysical refinements of philosophical apologists; but it is taking the religion as it is EVERY DAY to be found in practice, as it is taught the people in the catechisms still put into their hands for their instruction and guidance, and as it is enforced by the threats and anathemas of the Head of their selfstyled infallible Church *.

In proof of the fidelity of these statements, we merely refer our readers to the historic facts, and superabundant absurdities (also supported by the most indisputable authorities) so lavishly scattered throughout this Volume, and, at the same time, refrain from strengthening our assertions by recurring to monastic legends or unauthenticated traditions.

* Vide pages 43, 187.

BLANCO WHITE'S DESCRIPTION OF THE

PRIESTS-TRANSUBSTANTIATION—PURGATORY, AND CONFESSION.

"A priest, even when raised to that office from the lowest of the people, is entitled to have his hands kissed with the greatest reverence by every one, even a prince of his communion. Children are taught devoutly to press their innocent lips upon those hands, to which, as they are told, the very Saviour of mankind, who is in heaven, comes down daily. The laws of Roman Catholic countries are, with regard to priests, made according to the spirit of these religious notions: -A priest cannot be tried by the judges of the land for even the most horrible crimes. Murders of the most shocking nature have often been perpretated by priests in my country; but I do not recollect an instance of their being put to death, except when the murdered person was also a priest. I knew the sister of a young lady who was stabbed to the heart at the door of the church, where the murderer, who was her confessor, had, a few minutes before, given her absolution! He stabbed her, in the presence of her mother, to prevent the young lady's marriage, which was to take place that day. This monster was allowed to live, because he was a priest. What but the belief in transubstantiation could secure to the clergy impunity of this kind? Even in Ireland, where the law makes no difference between man and man, a priest can take liberties with the multitude, and exert a

despotic command over them, which the natural spirit of the Irish would not submit to from the first nobleman in the kingdom.-For all this the Catholic clergy have to thank tradition; for without that pretended › source of revelation, it would have been impossible to make whole nations believe that a priest (as they declare) can turn a wafer into God.

"Transubstantiation was, and is still, to the Romanist priesthood a never-failing source of profit. The notion that they have the power of offering up the whole living person of Christ, whenever they perform mass, paved the way to the doctrine, which makes the mass itself a repetition of the great sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. Under the idea that the priest who performs the bloodless sacrifice, as they call it, can appropriate the whole benefit of it to the individual whom he mentions in his secret prayer before or after consecration, the Roman Catholics are eager all over the world to purchase the benefit of masses for themselves; to obtain the favour of Saints by having the masses done in their praise; and, finally, to save the souls of their friends out of purgatory by the same means; regarding which, they believe that there is a place very like hell, where such souls as die, having received absolution of their sins, are made to undergo a certain degree of punishment; like criminals who, being saved from the gallows, are kept to hard work as a means of correction. This doctrine, once being received by the people, became a true gold mine to the pope and his

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priesthood. This was obtained, by teaching the Roman Catholics, that the pope, as vicar of Christ, had the power to relieve or release the souls in purgatory, by means of what they call indulgences. These indulgences were made such an open market of, throughout Europe before the Reformation, that kings and governments, even such as were staunch Catholics, bitterly complained that the popes drained their kingdoms of money. Incalculable treasures have flowed into the lap of the Roman Catholic clergy, for which they have to thank the doctrine of purgatory. The reason is clear the pope knew too well his interest not to attack the doctrine of transubstantiation and the mass on that of the souls in purgatory fire. If a mass, they said, is a repetition of the great sacrifice on the cross, and it is in the power of the priest to apply the benefit of it to any one, then, by sending such a relief to a soul in purgatory, that soul has the greatest chance of being set free from those burning flames, and of entering at once into heaven. Who that believes this doctrine will spare his pocket, when he thinks that his dearest relations are asking the aid of a mass to escape out of the burning furnace! You will find, accordingly, that no Roman Catholic, who can afford it, omits to pay as many priests as possible to say masses for his deceased relations and friends; and that the poor of that persuasion, both in England and in Ireland, establish clubs for the purpose of collecting a fund, out of which a certain number of masses are to be purchased for each

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