78 WARD-SOUTHWELL-NICHOLSON AND BURN. sir, who can understand Arabic?' Yet the reading of what he did not comprehend was supposed to be very meritorious. Thousands of Hindoos and Mussulmans spend incredible portions of time in audibly reading what they have no apparent wish to understand. The writer of the Ug-vada prescribes attention to the author, subject, metre, and purpose of each Muntru, but the meaning is of less importance."-WARD, vol. 1, p. 313. [Growth in Grace.] oftentimes attend the sermon at church.”. NICHOLSON and BURN's West. vol. 1, p. 524. [Heresy of Origen.] "ONE of Origen's heresies, for every speculation or conjecture of this extraordinary man, was held to be a settled heretical opinion, was, that the coats of skins with which the Lord clothed Adam and Eve, when they were expelled from Paradise, must be understood to mean their human bodies; and that before their expulsion they had neither nerves, flesh, nor bones."-BERNINO, tom. 1, P. 122. ST. HIER. Epist. 61. [Monastery of Seelig Michael.] "THE ruins of the monastery of Seelig Michael, much more ancient than those of Bal "FOR though there be great difference between the flower of childhood and the ripeness of old age, yet is it the same man that was then young and is now old, and though the parts of children's bodies be neither so big nor strong as they be in the full growth, yet are they the very same, equallynascellig, are mentioned by GERALDUS1, in number and like in proportion, and if and are yet visible on a flat in the centre any have altered shape unagreeable to the of the island, about fifty feet above the level former, or be increased or diminished in of the sea. This flat consists of about three number, the whole body either waxeth monIrish acres, and here several cells of stone, strous, or weak, or altogether dyeth. So closed and jointed without any cement, imought it to be in Christian doctrine, that pervious to the wind, and covered in with though by years the same be strengthened, circular stone arches. Here also are the by time enlarged, and advanced by age, yet two clear fountains, where the pilgrims, who always it remains unaltered and uncorrupt- on the 29th of September, visited the island ed. And though the wheat kernel which in great numbers, repeated stationary prayour forefathers have sown, by the husbanders, preparatory to their higher ascent. man's diligence hath sprung to a more ample form, hath more distinction of parts, and is become an ear of corn, yet let the propriety of the wheat be retained, and no cockle reaped where the wheat was sown." -SOUTHWELL. [The Saint's Bell.] "In the old church in Ravenstonedale there was a small bell, called the Saint's Bell, which was wont to be rung after the Nicene Creed, to call in the dissenters to the sermon. And to this day the dissenters, besides frequenting the meeting-house, "The island is, as Keating truly states, an immense rock, composed of high and almost inaccessible precipices, which hang dreadfully over the sea; having but one very narrow track leading to the top, and of such difficult ascent that few are so hardy as to attempt it. The Druidic pilgrim, however, COLUMBANUS. having made his votive offering at the sacred wells, proceeded to adore the sacred stone at the summit of the most lofty precipices of the island. "At the height of about one hundred and fifty feet above the sea, he squeezed through a hollow chasm, resembling the funnel of a chimney, and named the Needle's Eye, an ascent extremely difficult even to persons who proceed bare-footed, though there are holes cut into the rock for the purpose of facilitating the attempt. When this obstacle is surmounted, a new one occurs; for the only track to the summit is by an horizontal flat, not above a yard wide, which projects over the sea, and is named, in Irish, hic an dochra, the stone of pain. The difficulty of clinging to this stone is very great, even when the weather is calm; but when there is any wind, as is commonly the case, the danger of slipping, or of being blown off, united with the dizziness occasioned by the immense perpendicular height above the level of the sea, is such as imagination only can picture. When this projecting rock, about twelve feet in height, is surmounted, the remaining way to the highest peak is less difficult. But then, two stations of tremendous danger remain to be performed. The first is termed, the station of the Eagle's nest, where a stone cross was substituted by the monks for the unhewn stone, the object of Druidic worship, which required the previous lustrations and ablutions of the sacred wells. Here, if the reader will fancy a man perched on the summit of a smooth slippery pinnacle, and poised in air about four hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea, beholding a vast expanse of ocean westward, and eastward the Kerry mountains, which he overlooks, he may form some idea of the superstitious awe, which such tremendous Druidic rites were calculated to inspire; and yet many pilgrims have proceeded from this frightful pinnacle to the second, the most whimsical, as well as the most dangerous that even Druidic superstition ever suggested. It consists of a narrow ledge of rock which projects 79 from the pinnacle already mentioned, so as to form with it the figure of an inverted letter L, projecting horizontally from the very apex of the pinnacle several feet, itself not being above two feet broad! This ledge projects so far, as to enable him who would venture on it, to see the billows at the distance of four hundred and sixty feet in perpendicular, and the sea here is ninety feet deep, so that the largest man of war may ride in safety at anchor underneath; and yet to this extreme end the pilgrim proceeded astride upon this ledge, until, quite at its utmost verge he kissed a cross which some bold adventurer dared cut into it, as an antidote to the superstitious practices of pagan times." - COLUMBANUS' Three Letters, p. 95. [Uncertainty of the Oath of Allegiance.] "In the secret synods of 1809 and 1810, the domineering maxims of an Algerine form of church government were unblushingly avowed! If I had not seen the acts of these synods, such was the confidence I reposed in some of our bishops, that they might have with the greatest ease succeeded in imposing upon me, as upon all Ireland, any system of Church discipline they pleased. But the bishops of Tullow unsheathed the sword of spiritual domination against the emigrant clergy and laity of France, in a style which plainly indicated, how unreservedly they would proceed, in similar circumstances, against the laity and clergy of their own communion at home! Not content with laying the most venerable laws of the Catholic church prostrate at the mere will, and absolute disposal of the Pope, they declared the solemn coronation of Buonaparte a holy act; they concurred in the absolution of the French emigrants from their allegiance to the Bourbons, in less than one year after the Pope had acknowledged Louis XVIII! and they thus unequivocally betrayed the secret, that our oath of allegiance may in the short period of one year, "WHEN the celebrated Irish Remonstrance was subscribed by seventy of our power of foreign influence, that when the Duke of Ormond, then lord lieutenant, requested that they would give some assurance of future obedience, in case of the King's excommunication by the Pope, they absolutely refused to comply."- COLUMBANUS ad Hibernos, No. 3, p. 107. viary-an Illustration.] second order of clergy, and one hundred [Tale of St. Nicholas, from the Roman Breand sixty-four of our principal nobility, of whom twenty-one were peers, in the years 1661 and 1662, the subscribers were traduced as having renounced the Pope. The nuncio at Brussels, De Vecchi, declared that loyal Remonstrance, which had already disarmed persecution, to be sacrilegious and detestable. Monitories, citations, depositions, &c. were denounced against the subscribers for the space of twelve years, from 1661 to 1673; and four archbishops and nine bishops, who were appointed by Rome in the short interval from 1666 to 1671, contrived to assemble a synod in Dublin, which agreed in a counter address, undid all that had been done, and rekindled the animosities of for 1 mer times! 2 "In justice to these bishops, they never dreamt of excluding the second order of clergy from our national synods. They knew that nothing could be canonically transacted relating to faith or discipline without their concurrence. They therefore took care to ensure a great majority, and then they called together a National Synod of the Roman Catholic clergy, secular and regular, archbishops, bishops, provincials of orders, vicars-general, and other divines of Ireland, who continued in synod from the 11th to the 25th of June, 1766. "This was the only synod which, with the connivance of the civil power, had been held in any part of the British dominions since the reign of Queen Mary; but such was the 1 See the Hibernica of Valerius, part 3. 2 See Pope Bened. XIV. De Synodo, vol. 1, p. 3. De vocandis ad Synodum, ordine sedendi, &c. juxta proprium cujusque gradum. "Ir is only when the professors of Catholicity arrogate to themselves political command, under the mask of religion, that an attempt is made by them to extinguish the lamp of learning, to introduce the servitude of blind compliance, and by the help of bulls, which enjoin obedience to unjust censures, to establish ignorance and political Popery, by which the energies of men, shackled through their minds, may never be convinced! Then, whatever reading it recommends, is not only mixed up with the fabulous, but it is interlarded with that species of the fabulous, which is best calculated to degrade the understanding, and to substitute the vilest credulity, the most abject oriental servitude and subserviency of mind, for the manly energies, and the fortitude of religion."- COLUMBANUS ad Hibernos, No. 6, p. 56. Transubstantiation. "THE error might be some excuse, if it were probable, or if there were much temp One of the tales of the Roman Breviary, which I have read of in the office of this day, the 6th of November, informs me, that St. Nicholus was a pious faster, even from his birth; for on Wednesdays and Fridays, he abstained from his mother's milk; with a spirit of holiness worthy the imitation of all the students of Maynooth, he turned his little pious lips from the profane spring of maternal nourishment; and surely how can any pious Maynoothian complain, if he fares on Wednesdays and Fridays not more sumptuously than St. Nicholas? JEREMY TAYLOR. tation to it. But when they choose this persuasion, and have nothing for it but a tropical expression of scripture, which rather than not believe in the natural, useless, and impossible sense, they will defy all their own reason, and four of the five operations of their soul, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling, and contradict the plain doctrine of the ancient church, before they can consent to believe this error, that bread is changed into God, and the priest can make his Maker: we have too much cause to fear that the error is too gross to admit an excuse; and it is hard to suppose it invincible and involuntary, because it is so hard, and so untempting, and so unnatural to admit the error, we do desire that God may find an excuse for it, and that they would not.”—JEREMY TAYLOR. Dissuasive from Popery, part 1, p. 438. Indulgences. "THOUGH the gains which the Church of Rome makes of Indulgences, be a heap almost as great as the abuses themselves, yet the greatest patrons of this new doctrine could never give any certainty, or reasonable comfort to the conscience of any person that could inquire into it. They never durst determine whether they were Absolutions or Compensations; whether they only take off the penances actually imposed by the Confessor, or potentially, and all that which might have been imposed; whether all that may be paid in the Court of men, or all that can or will be required by the Laws and severity of God. Neither can they speak rationally to the Great Question, whether the treasure of the church consists of the satisfactions of Christ only, or of the saints? For if of saints, it will by all men be acknowledged to be a defeasible estate, and being finite and limited, all will be spent sooner than the needs of the church can be served; and if therefore it be necessary to add the merits and satisfaction of Christ; since they are an ocean of infinity, and can 81 supply more than all our needs, to what purpose is it to add the little minutes and droppings of the saints? They cannot tell whether they may be given if the receiver do nothing or give nothing for them; and though this last particular could better be resolved by the Court of Rome than by the Church of Rome, yet all the doctrines which built up the new fabric of Indulgences were so dangerous to determine, so improbable, so unreasonable, or at best so uncertain and invidious, that according to the advice of the Bishop of Modena, the Council of Trent left all the Doctrines, and all the Cases of Conscience quite alone, and slubbered the whole matter, both in the question of Indulgences and Purgatory, in general and recommendatory terms, affirming that the power of giving Indulgences is in the church, and that the use is wholesome; and that all hard and subtle questions (viz.) concerning Purgatory (which although, if it be at all, it is a fire, yet is the fuel of Indulgences, and maintains them wholly), all that is suspected to be false, and all that is uncertain, and whatsoever is curious and superstitious, scandalous or for filthy lucre, be laid aside. And in the mean time, they tell us not what is, and what is not superstitious; nor what is scandalous; nor what they mean by the general term of Indulgence; and they establish no doctrine, neither curious nor incurious, nor durst they decree the very foundation of the whole matter, the Church's Treasury; neither durst they meddle with it, but left it as they found it, and continued in the abuses, and proceeded in the practice, and set their doctors as well as they can, to defend all the new and curious and scandalous questions, and to uphold the gainful trade."-JEREMY TAYLOR. Dissuasive from Popery, p. 21. 82 WORDSWORTH — LEWIS. wondered at, where the service was in an unknown tongue, that efforts to please or to astonish the ear by the tricks of art, and by passages of a laborious and rapid execution, should take the place of simple, grave, and solemn melodies. Wickliffe expresses himself with great severity on this subject. See Lewis's History, p. 132-135. And in the same place, says very beautifully, in reply to an argument that might be used on the other side, And if they seyn that angels hearen (praise) God by song in heaven; seye that we kunnen (know) not that song; but they ben in full victory of their enemies, and we ben in perilous battle, and in the valley of weeping and mourning; and our song letteth us for better occupation, and stirreth us to many great sins, and to forget ourselves.' Erasmus, in one of his Epistles, attributes the ignorance so prevalent in his times, partly to the want of sober and sound preaching of God's word, and partly to the encroachments made upon Divine service by the unbounded usage in churches of elaborate and artificial music. (Lib. 25, Epist. 64.) And in his Annotations on the New Testament, written about the year 1512, he gives a description which displays the same evil in very striking terms, We have introduced into the churches, a certain elaborate and theatrical species of music, accompanied with a tumultuous diversity of voices. All is full of trumpets, cornets, pipes, fiddles, and singing. We come to church as to a playhouse. And for this purpose, ample salaries are expended on organists and societies of boys, whose whole time is wasted in learning to sing. These fooleries are become so agreeable, that the monks, especially in England, think of nothing else. To this end, even in the Benedictine monasteries of England, many youths, boys, and other vocal performers, are sustained, who, early every morning, sing to the organ the mass of the Virgin Mary, with the most harmonious modulations of voice. And the bishops are obliged to keep choirs of this sort in their families.' Annotat. in Epist. 1, ad Corinth. (chap. 14, v. 19.)”—WORDSWORTH'S Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. 1, p. 171. [Wiclif opposed to the Introduction of the New Song.] "WICLIF opposed the introducing the New Song, which he says, they 'clepen God's service,' and which he describes by 'deschaunt, countre note, and organ. By these,' says he, 'the priests are letted fro studying and preaching of the Gospel.' So again he observes that Mattins, and Mass, and Evensong, Placebo and Dirige, and Commendation, and Mattins of our Lady were ordained of sinful men to be sung with high crying to lett men fro the sentence and understanding of that that was thus sung, and to maken men weary and undisposed to study God's law. For a king of heds, and of short time then more vain japes founden deschant, countre note, and organs, and small breking that stirreth vain men to dauncing more than mourning. And therefore ben many proud and lecherous losels founden and dowed with temporal and worldly lordships and great cost. But these fools shulden dread the sharp words of Austin, that seith, As oft as the song liketh me more than doth the sentence that is sung, so oft I confess that I sin grievously. And if these knackers excusen them by song in the old law, seye that Christ that best kept the olde lawe as it shulde be afterwards taught not ne charged us with such bodily song, ne any of his apostles but with devotion in heart, and holy life and true preching, and that is enough and the best. But who shuld then charge us with more oure freedom and lightness of Christ's law? And if they seyn that angels hearen God by song in heaven; seye that we kunnen not that song, but they ben in full victory of their enemies, and we ben in perilous battle; and in the valley of weeping and mourning, and our song letteth us fro better occupation, and stirreth us to many great sins, and to forget us selves: but our |