(which is commonly called a conventicle, conciliabulum,) it is in Italy herself never mentioned but by way of reprobation. So we see the German prelates, according to the above article of the Foreign Quarterly Review, rejecting the Romish doctrine of confession, the celibacy of the clergy, &c., without supposing for a moment that they are rejecting any article of Catholic doctrine. And as to the cardinal points of the faith in reference to sin, grace, justification, &c., it is well known that the best portion of even the Italian clergy adhere to the teachings of Jansenius. Therefore, when a Catholic speaks of Popery, or Romanism, Hildebrandism, Ultramontanism, &c., he does not mean the fundamental tenets of his faith, but the novelties which the Church of Rome in the pursuit of worldly objects has added to them, and forcibly imposed on the Catholic Church.

These elements of opposition to the principles of the Roman Church exist, as they have done since the dark ages, stronger in Italy than in any other country. They are amalgamated with the political feelings of the people, and imbodied in their literature; the ascendency of the curia of Rome always occupies the foreground in the tragical scenes of that ill-fated land; and no Italian can read his novelists, historians, poets, from the thirteenth century to this day, without meeting at every page some new account of the sufferings of his country from the ambition, rapacity, and profligacy of the Papal court. See on this point M'Crie's History of the Reformation in Italy; Rossetti's Antipapal Spirit of the Italian Classics; Sismondi's Abridgment of his own History of the Italian Republics, &c.

Further to illustrate this subject we transfer to our pages a few facts recorded in the history of our times.

In 1797 a melodrama, or ballet d'action, was brought out at the Theatre della Scala in Milan, called Il General Colli in Roma, or Il Ballo del Papa. The ludicrousness of this piece, which was exhibited for many successive nights, may be inferred from the part which the pope himself performs in the last scene, in the hall of the consistory, when, throwing off the tiara, Pius VI. assumed the cap of liberty, and danced a few steps to show his handsome legs, of which he was notoriously vain, and the house, convulsed with laughter, rung with a tumultuous applause, and insisted again and again, with one voice, on its repetition.

When Pius VII. was, by order of Napoleon, carried into France in 1809, and the Papal provinces were annexed to the French empire, the inhabitants expressed their satisfaction at the change through a deputation sent across the Alps for the purpose, at the

head of which was Duke Braschi, the nephew of Pius VI.: and when the same Pius VII. in 1814, on his returning to Rome, was approaching Bologna with the intention of passing through it, a deputation from the city authorities met him with the request that he would keep out of Bologna to avoid all dangers: for the people were so incensed at the restoration of the Papacy, that they, the city authorities, could not guaranty his personal safety.

The same Pius VII. employed his last moments of freedom, in 1809, in drawing up and launching forth a most terrible bull of excommunication against Napoleon for the seizure of the Papal state: and the Italians did not even laugh at it; they did not notice it. And when the present pope, Mauro Capellari, laid, with all the imposing forms of Boniface VIII., the city of Ancona, in 1832, under the spiritual interdict, not only the Italians of other states, but his own subjects, sneered at it in the morning, and most contemptuously forgot it in the evening, of its publication.

The system, therefore, of foreign operations by the Christian Alliance, ought, it seems to us, to be based on the elements of opposition above adverted to existing in the bosom of the Romish Church and among the Italians, stronger than elsewhere, for the purpose of harmonizing, correcting, extending, and strengthening them by the introduction of our superior means of knowledge, and the legitimate exercise of all our influence.

The greater importance of Italy, in the object of the Christian Alliance, arises out of her peculiar political and moral condition as above stated, and from the circumstances, first, that Popery is weaker there than in the rest of the world, and consequently more easily wounded there, and for the rest of the world also. The late bull of the pope, May 8th, 1844, fulminated against this society, has, we are happy to hear, convinced the most incredulous of the truth of this statement. There are, in Protestant countries, many societies in active operation against Romanism even in Popish countries, and not one of them, the Bible societies excepted, has deserved the reprobation of Rome, but the Christian Alliance. Second, that several Italians, favorably known at home for their probity, talent, and influence, may be easily, and we are already sure of it, enlisted in this undertaking, and that many Italians abroad, of character and great literary attainments, have offered to this new society their gratuitous services: for to them all its object is one of the greatest national importance. After having been for ten centuries the butt of the cruelties, and the victim of every kind of treachery and plunder, to foreign nations, Italy welcomes, as the cheering harbinger of better days, this beginning of a movement which has for

its object, not conquest or spoliation, but religious freedom and its consequent benefits for all, under the benign illumination and guidance of the revealed truth.

The domestic part of the business of the Christian Alliance should, in our estimation, consist in the active extension of its organization all over the United States, England, and other Protestant countries, for the purpose of strengthening the cause of religious liberty at home by bringing the churches and governments up to the discharge of their domestic duties,* and then of directing their superabundant strength under a common authority, on a single plan, and with a single purpose to the one object, of not only resisting, but assailing everywhere, defeating and conquering this Janus-faced despotism, whose peace is compatible only with our destruction.

The superior advantages of Romanism in its conflicts with Protestantism, arising out of its unity of plans and operations, ought to teach the Protestant churches in this hour of danger, and while

* We explain our meaning fully enough by the following quotations:"The population of the parish of Westbury, in Wiltshire, England, amounts to eight thousand persons: there are three churches to serve and only one clergyman, whose living has been commuted at two hundred and thirty-five pounds per annum. The great tithes and estate held under the church amount to upward of three hundred pounds per annum, and are held by Mr. White," &c.-Extract of the N. Y. Sun, Oct. 1844, from the Wiltshire Independent.

Here we have one shepherd set over a flock of eight thousand sheep, for whose spiritual care he receives two hundred and thirty-five pounds, while more than three hundred pounds are extracted from them; a handsome compensation for doing nothing. This is one case out of thousands; and is it a wonder that Romanism under such circumstances makes such unexampled strides in England?

"Bishop Purcell last year informed the president of the Society for the Propagation of the Romish Faith at Lyons, that in St. Xavier's college, Cincinnati, there were about one hundred and fifty pupils, of whom more than one half were Protestants. If the same proportion obtains in the other Popish colleges in this country.. we have every second year about eight thousand young people falling from the Protestant faith into the embraces of mother Church, (of Rome,) making a difference in the relative strength of the Protestant and the Popish Church of eight thousand souls every year."—Christian Advocate and Journal, April, 1844.

Is it then to be wondered at if the number of Romanists is swelled by accessions from the Protestant fold, and so many distressing instances occur every month of promising young men and women entrapped in the snares of Rome, and entering even convents and nunneries?

Why Protestants should be so anxious to open churches and schools in the furthest regions of the earth, while churches and schools are sadly wanted at home, we cannot, as Christians of common sense principles, understand.

this danger is still within their control, the necessity of a like union among themselves. If they should place their means, talent, and influence into a common fund, under a common direction, for their common defense, and the promotion of their own fundamental principles, Popery would soon go to destruction. Moreover, their own governments, in whose hands, as we have said, lies the fate of Popery, are under their control: at least, this is undoubtedly true in regard to the government of Great Britain. These governments have restored Popery to life, when no people under the sun wanted her resurrection, and thereby laid them under the responsibility of a moral and religious sin. As the interest of Protestant countries and the duty of the Christian churches now most undoubtedly coincide, why should they not take measures to redeem themselves from a passive guilt by compelling their ministry to leave Popery to her fate? So long as Roman Catholic powers made war on the pope for their own aggrandizement, worldly, though short-sighted, policy may have made it appear to the English ministry and others that it was their political duty to support the pope; but now the tables are completely reversed. And it is high time, indeed, that there should be some agreement between professions and actions among Protestants, and that the imputation of atheism and infidelity, which is very commonly cast on them by the Italians at home, on account of the iniquitous policy of the English cabinet in Italy, and the outrageous conduct of many English noblemen traveling in that country, should lose at least some portion of its truth.

As to the means for the accomplishment of its end, the society, as we see it most explicitly stated in its address, will employ those only that are in perfect keeping with the end itself, and therefore unexceptionable.

The first of these means will naturally be the circulation of Bibles, and other historical, dogmatical, and moral books on Biblical principles, and consistent with strict Christian morality.

The second, the establishment of missions and elementary schools wherever and whenever it can be done at an advantage, and especially in Italian territories under free governments, and in the large cities and sea-ports of Europe and America, where Italians are to be found congregated in large numbers.

The third, the ecclesiastical and secular press in this country and Europe. But the success of this movement is, and we must repeat it again in concluding, in the hands of the Protestants themselves; and the season is most propitious. Their governments must see that they have all along been fostering and nursing into life a viper, which has baffled all their calculations on its gratitude and harm,

lessness. The people of Roman Catholic countries, on the European continent, contemplate in dismay the giant proportions of that monster which mangled them in the preceding centuries so unmercifully, while their sovereigns themselves begin to feel hurt at its overbearance, and uneasy at its unmanageableness.

Let, then, we say, let from this land of Christian freedom, unfettered either by prejudices or interested prepossessions, go forth the cry, "Arise, ye slaves of the man of sin, come ye out of Babylon into the light and freedom which were provided for you, also, by our common Redeemer."

P. S. We have just learned from an authentic source that the Leopoldine society alone has contributed to the support of the Romish Church here during the past year about $200,000. When we think of the moral and physical destitution of the larger portion of the Austrian empire, of the Sclavonic and Greek populations in its neighborhood, of Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, &c., we cannot forbear declaring our honest convictions that this society has anything but a Christian object in view, and that it is an insult to the institutions and feelings of this country. It is a part and parcel of the great conspiracy set on foot by the Holy Alliance.

ART. VI.-Protestantism in Great Britain.

(Translated from the French of" L'Europe Protestante," for the Methodist Quarterly Review.)

[THE following article will be found to contain a hasty sketch of the present condition and relative position of the Protestant churches in Great Britain. Many of the views presented are interesting and important, and we have no doubt will be appreciated by our readers. With the writer, we most heartily deplore the divisions among the different members of the great Protestant family. It is, doubtless, at this point that the Romanists thrust at us the most sorely. O when will Christians love one another "with a pure heart fervently?"

We do not, however, sympathize with all the alarms of the writer. The dissensions now pending upon the subject of state establishments, "the voluntary principle," &c., if they are conducted with Christian charity, will wake up a spirit in the British empire which will, we trust, by the good providence of God, work out the salvation of the country from its present embarrassments. We hope VOL. V.-7