POPERY.

The political press of Europe teems with denunciations of this liberty-destroying, and hateful superstition. Editors in this country under the mask of charity, and liberality, but really from fear of curtailing their party votes, and diminishing their subscription lists, are afraid to look the serpent in the mouth. It is not so in Britain where the reptile’s fangs once fastened themselves with their usual deadly effect upon society. The drunken Jezebel is well understood there, and held up to the execration she deserves. Popery unrestrained and liberty cannot long coexist in unity. They are essentially antagonistic. They are the Serpent and the Woman, as it were, between whom God has placed eternal and implacable enmity. The republic or kingdom that cherishes her will sooner or later be enslaved. This is believed and felt by the liberals of Europe, whom power and want of opportunity only restrain from wreaking terrible vengeance on the Harlot, drunk with the blood of the saints and prophets of the Lord.

We extract the following from the “London Weekly Times,” containing the cheering assurance that every thing in Europe indicates the speedy overthrow of the Pope’s ascendancy over the West. We rejoice in this as in crushing a serpent’s head, which we always do without any bowels of compassion. His fall, however, will only make way for one more energetic and powerful. Still it is one important step towards the end. It brings us nearer the kingdom of God, for which we pray continually; so that “his will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The Times observes:

“Popery all over the continent of Europe is in its last throes. In France it is only the pensioner of a state quite ripe for the most unshackled voluntary system, and the majority of whose educated people only adopt its tenets as an accommodating screen to opinions hostile to every existing exposition of Christian faith. In Germany it is being slowly undermined by the schools; and in Italy—its nominal native seat—its worship is suspected, and its discipline abhorred. Its outward paraphernalia, indeed, is everywhere viewed as vestiges of the dark ages, and its very doctrines scouted and scoffed at under the nose of the decrepit bigot who was driven by his outraged subjects to seek shelter behind the bayonets of the butcher of Naples. So that Popery in its unadulterated form only finds favour among old families who have bred in and in until they have become as stupid as the owls on their estates—girls fascinated by a fervour half sensual, half spiritual—ladies who, like Dyce Sombre’s mother, would slip into Paradise by the back way, if the front were closed against them—men who, like Mr. Spencer, think true piety can only be found under a scare-crow costume—and lastly, and most melancholy batch of all, the vast multitude, whose blunted instincts, limited range of thought, and blind fanaticism make them believe in a material happiness and a material punishment hereafter. Knowing all this, and that a termination to their authority is nigh, the priests are now making their last tremendous onslaught on the freedom of opinion. Give them a monopoly of the substance and functions of the brain and they will be satisfied; for without that they are quite assured they have no legitimate locus standi on any part of the globe. That we are not exaggerating their sentiments may be proved in their refusal of the Scriptures to the laity—in their bitter hostility to secular education—in their aristocratic pretensions to civil authority—in their incurable avarice—and their unnatural and offensive repudiation of the institutions of marriage.

Ireland has been selected as the head quarters of this rank idolatry; and certainly the soil has been well prepared for the culture of its debasing, mind-enslaving doctrines. In no other country have the priests so great an influence over all classes of Romanists as in Ireland. Poor and rich equally bend in abject servility to their commands. They feast at the tables of the rich, purloin from those of the poor, exercise a rigid control over “baptisms,” marriages, and burials, and even meddle with the ordinary occupations of the humblest of their flocks. Their power over the superstitious minds of their followers is so vast that the assassination of the lewdest among them would be regarded with horror, and the offender unpityingly hunted to the gallows. In Italy and Spain, a poignard rids a husband of the robber of his honor; in Ireland the remotest suspicion of such a crime is never entertained; and the offender has only to preserve the externals of decency to sin with impunity.

“As to the political conduct of Protestants generally in these eventful days, we would refer our readers to the recorded sentiments of one of our most amiable poets, a man who wrote against, spoke against, and detested tyranny and cruelty in every shape. Thus wrote Cowper for the use and behoof of all wavering Protestants: —

“Hast thou admitted with a blind, fond trust,

The he that burn’d thy father’s bones to dust,

That first adjudged them heretics, then sent

Their souls to heaven, and cursed them as they went?

The lie that Scripture strips of its disguise,

And execrates above all other lies!

The lie that claps a lock on mercy’s plan,

And gives the key to you infirm old man;

Who once ensconced in apostolic chair

Is deified and sits omniscient there!

The lie that knows no kindred, owns no friend,

But him that makes its progress his chief end;

That having spilt much blood, makes that a boast,

And canonises him that sheds the most!

Away with charity that soothes a lie,

And thrusts the truth with scorn and anger by!

Shame on the candour, and the gracious smile

Bestowed on them that light the martyr’s pile,

While insolent disdain, in frowns express’d,

Attends the tenets that endured that test!

Grant them the rights of men, and while they cease

To vex the peace of others, grant them peace!”

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