"THOU ART GOOD, AND DOEST GOOD." I LEAVE it with Thee, Lord, whatever it be, Lord; There seems to be sorrow in store for the morrow, Oh, how can we wonder at storm-cloud and thunder, Thou doest no evil, though nature and devil Thou lovest, and provest Thy love, as Thou movest All wisdom and power, O Lord, is Thy dower, Our country is scorning Thy merciful warning; Her Church, in confusion, spreads far the delusion, Oh, stay, Lord, its rising; Thy power is surprising ; Flash truth in their faces, and hurl from their place; Though judgments o'ertake us, Lord, do not forsake us! Be near those who love Thee, aid all who would prove Thee, Ah! Lord, she is mortal; stand Thou by death's portal, Let Thine eyes attract her, though nations distract her; And now for ourselves, Lord, the rocks and the shelves, Lord, We pine o'er our losses, and kick at our crosses, Though confidence rings in our song. Whatever may be, Lord, I leave it with Thee, Lord; Thy way must be better than mine; There seems to be sorrow in store for the morrow, MRS. T. CHAPLIN. How slippery are the stations of earthly honours, and subject to continual mutability. Happy are they who are in favour with Him in whom there is no shadow of change.-Bishop Hall. ROMANISM AND ITS FRUITS.* IMPARTIAL history tells us that Martin Luther's journey to Rome, in the sixteenth century, did much towards opening his eyes to the abominations of Popery. That memorable visit took place towards the close of the reign of Pope Julius. Luther crossed the Alps full of faith and reverence. Italy was to him a sacred land. With its poets and historians he had long been familiar. Virgil, and Horace, Cicero and Livy, had been to him like household names. To him, too, the Pope was the earthly representative of God, and Rome was the Holy City of the one true Catholic Church.. No thought of resisting the mandates of the Pope or the Church had ever yet occurred to him. Had it been suggested, he would have rejected the idea as a horrible blasphemy. Rome seemed to him a haven of heavenly rest for tempest-tossed consciences, for was it not the city of martyrs? Was it not filled with sacred relics?" Hail, holy Rome !" he ejaculated, when first he caught sight of its distant towers. But his beautiful and poetic dream was quickly dispelled. As soon as he entered Italy, he found the convents luxurious and licentious, and the priesthood openly depraved. He said the very air of Italy seemed deadly and pestilential. Sickness supervened, the effect of shame and sorrow. But he wandered on, feebleand sad, until he reached the Holy City. Most honestly he observed all the superstitious rites of the Church, determined to escape the pains of purgatory, and to win a plenary indulgence.. His zeal and conscientiousness were something new and strange in Rome. His fellow-monks mocked his severe penances, and the impious clergy blasphemed his rigid purity. He made the painful ascent of the holy stairs upon his knees, when emaciated by his sufferings of both body and mind. But he found he stood alone in that great city in his scrupulous reverence for truth, and purity, and devout worship. He was horror-stricken to find that the head of the Church was a monster who revelled in vice; that the cardinals were worse than their master; and that the priests were, as a rule, profane sceptics. Amid all his soul exercises, there was one passage of Scripture which unceasingly rang in his ears--"The just shall live by faith." But this life of faith he failed to find at Rome; and, heartbroken with disappointment, he fled back to his German cell. Such was Rome in the sixteenth century; what is she in the nineteenth? A remarkable book, published recently at Leipsic, on "The Jesuits in the German Empire," gives some very startling Published as a Tract, twenty-five for fourpence, at the Tract Depository, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London. W. K. Bloom, agent. facts. In England, it is shown that one murder occurs annually for every 178,000 inhabitants; in Holland, one for 163,000; in Prussia, one for 100,000; in Austria, one for 57,000; in Spain, one for 4,113; and in Naples, one for 2,750; but at Rome, there is one homicide for every 750 of population! Hence, in the Holy(?) City of Rome, human life is 237 times less secure than it is in Protestant England. The countries in which priestly control has been mightiest have always been the most degraded and criminal. In Spain, which has only of late cast off the yoke of absolute submission, the priests have had the moulding of the popular mind for centuries. They have drawn from the people a larger revenue than that of the government; and yet a more demoralized and illiterate nation cannot be found in the civilized world. Out of their sixteen millions, twelve millions can neither read nor write; only three millions can both read and write; one half their town mayors cannot read and write! Her present divided and distracted condition is the natural consequence of her ignorance and immorality. But here for centuries the Romish priests have had it all their own way-a clear stage without a rival, and the undivided favour and support of the civil government. The truth is, the great bulk of the population, in thoroughly Popish countries, consider the observance of the rites of the Church as of immensely more importance than good morals. Let the reader take the following fact as an illustration : "A man came down from the hills to a Neapolitan priest to confess a sin which lay heavy upon his conscience. In the busy season of Lent, while engaged in making cheese, some of the whey had fallen upon his lips, and, miserable man that he was, he had swallowed it. "Free my distressed conscience," he besought, "from its agonies by absolving me from my guilt." "Have you no other sins to confess?" asked the priest. No; I do not know that I have committed any other." "We often hear of robberies and murders committed in your mountains. Have you never been concerned in these ?" 'Yes, but all of us do these things. We never account them as crimes needing confession and absolution." 66 The following also illustrates the operation of the same principle: Two noted Mediterranean pirates were once captured, and condemned to death at Malta. It was observed that the beef and anchovies among the stores of a captured English ship had alone remained untouched. They were asked the cause of this singular procedure, and replied that it was the time of the great. fast of their Church. They would not commit such a sin as tasting of fish or flesh. They were plundering and murdering men, E women, and helpless children, but they would not transgress the canons of their Church by eating meat on fast days. They looked to their strict observance of these things as a merit, for which God would grant them success in their infamous work. Throughout, indeed, good morals and holiness of heart are esteemed by the vast majority of Romanists as of less importance than the punctilious observance of superstitious rites. This spirit operates even in the treatment of the dead. Rome formerly did a brisk trade in indulgences. According to the following report, she is now as energetic in the sale of Masses for the dead : "A remarkable trial took place in Paris, in August, 1872, in which a merchant and a condemned priest were indicted for swindling, having appropriated a large amount of money, paid to them as brokers, for procuring Masses to be said by country priests for the repose of deceased Parisians! Several hundred thousands of such Masses are annually required in Paris, and, as the number is beyond the ability of the priests in that city to execute, country priests are sought for who will agree to perform them. This firm, seeing an opportunity to make money, opened an agency for the purpose of taking criminal advantage of this demand. They were convicted, and condemned to fine and imprisonment." This opens up a new line of business for our speculators. Fancy men on the Exchange acting as brokers for Masses for the dead, and trying to undersell each other in the terms for which souls can be released from the pains of purgatory! Surely these moneychangers in the temple of God need the application again of the scourge of small cords at the hands of Him whom they call Master. (See John ii. 13-17, and Matt. xxi. 12, 13.) Rome is the only Church that pretends to the power of working miracles, but her miracles are "lying wonders." This very claim assists us to identify her with the great apostacy. A lie told in the interests of the "Holy Catholic Church" is no sin, according to the moral philosophy of Liguori and the other doctors of Rome. Among the curious discoveries of modern times is one which was made in Milan. It seems that in one of the faubourgs of that city was a statue of St. Madeleine, which, from time immemorial, miraculously poured its tears on infidels and heretics. After the success of the Italian revolution it wept copiously. But at length it happened that the venerated monument needed repairs, and it was necessary to remove the statue, when, behold, it was found to contain a little reservoir of water, which was heated by means of a furnace concealed in the base. The water, in evaporating, rose to the head of the statue, where it condensed, and reached to two little tubes of the eyes, when it escaped and ran, drop by drop, over the cheeks. A very ingenious arrangement that! This discovery explains the mystery of "winking Madonnas" and "weeping saints." But what can we think of the Church that thus imposes upon the credulity of the world? Away with such a system of imposture from the face of the earth! And this is the "mystery of iniquity" to which our free and noble England is invited again to bow her neck. But will Englishmen indeed sell the birthright of spiritual freedom, won for them by Reformers and martyrs, for such a poisonous mess of pottage as the heresies and impostures of Rome? God forbid! Oh, Lord, how long? Arise, and plead Thine own cause! It is time for THEE to work, for men have made void Thy law by their tradition! A VOICE FROM AFAR. Camperdown, Australia, November 21st, 1882. DEAR SIR, It grieves me to see by the papers that the Catholics, infidelity, and Sabbath-breaking are so much on the increase in the Old Country, as well as here. It seems to me that we are in the latter days mentioned in the Word. I have enclosed a cutting from a newspaper, the leading Liberal paper in this colony, and I have seen by this paper that the lecturer mentioned there gets by collections every Sabbath from £30 to £40. It is in Melbourne that he lectures, but it will show you the drift of people's thoughts as generally tending to infidelity here. But we know that the Word says, "God shall bring strong delusions on them, that they shall believe a lie ;" and not to believe the Bible seems to me to be one of them. Oh, it grieves me to think of it; and at times it makes me long to get away somewhere where there are no such things. But all the world seems alike. There seems to me to be a class—and a large number, too-rising up that neither fear God nor regard man. But I can at times think over those words with sweetness, "Yet verily I know it shall be well with the righteous;" and also that the Almighty has promised to be a wall of fire round about His Zion; but I fear at times that I shall not be able to stand in the fiery trial that seems approaching. I know feelingly that, unless the Lord of life and glory upholds me, I shall not stand one minute. But He knows my inmost desires-that I wish and long for Him to make me in His hands as clay in the hands of the potter. I have written more than I intended when I began, and must conclude with best wishes for your welfare, temporally and spiritually. I remain, yours respectfully, To Mr. E. Wilmshurst. JAMES S. MORRIS. |