in his time a brazen group of antique workmanship, of the wolf giving suck to the infant brothers. ... From the tradition of the wonderful escape which Romulus had in this very place, when exposed in his infancy to perish in the Tiber, he was looked upon, as soon as he was deified, as singularly propitious to infants; and from this notion, it became a custom for nurses and mothers to bring their sickly children and present them at the shrine of this little temple, in the confident hope of relief. Hence, when this temple was afterwards converted into a church, care was taken to substitute in the place of the heathen god, a Christian Saint, who, like Romulus, had been exposed in his infancy, and preserved by a lucky chance; and who might, therefore, be presumed to be as fond of children, as their old deity had been. Thus the worship paid to Romulus, being now transferred to Theodorus, the old superstition still subsists, and the custom of presenting children at this shrine continues without intermission to the present day. In consecrating these heathen temples to the Christian worship, that the change might be less offensive, we have seen it was usual to look for some resemblance of quality and character in the saint who was substituted for the old deity. But more frequently regard has been had rather to a similitude of name between the old and new idol. Thus in a place formerly sacred to Apollo, now stands the church of Apollinaris; and where there formerly stood a temple of Mars, they have now erected a church to Martina, with this inscription: Martyrii gestans virgo Martina coronam, At a short distance from the old Lavinium, or Pratica, as it is now called, is a chapel dedicated to S. Anna Petronilla. Here we have, no doubt, a corruption of Anna Perenna, the sister of Dido, who was cast ashore upon the coast of Italy near the Numicus; a point corresponding with the situation of this little church. On that occasion, having accidentally met with Eneas and Achates, and rejected all terms of reconciliation with them, she was warned by the shade of Dido, in a dream, to escape from the treachery of Lavinia. In the sudden consternation excited by this vision, she is said to have precipitated herself into the Numicus, of which she became the protecting nymph,-while games, described at length in Ovid, were instituted in her honour: Placidi sum nympha Numici, Thus "Anna, the mother of the Virgin," has inherited the seat and credit of Auna, Thus the church of S. Poalo, at Syracuse, is said to record the precise situation of the house in which that apostle lived during his stay there. The Sauta Maria, in the Via Lata at Rome, preserves the memory of the place where Peter and Paul lodged. . . . A chapel has been dedicated to S. Romouald, at Camaldoli, to de signate the rock on which that Saint alighted, without personal injury, after having been thrown down a tremendous precipice in a struggle with the devil. THE CONFORMITY BETWEEN THE POPISH AND PAGAN RELIGIOUS So evidently has the Church of Rome borrowed its principal ceremonies from the rituals of Paganism, that even the more candid and learned Catholics scruple not to admit it. M. de Marolles informs us how he once surprised an Archbishop of France by a frank avowal of it; demonstrating afterwards, by an induction of particulars, the justness of his position.... The very first thing that a stranger must necessarily notice on entering a Roman Catholic church, is the use of incense. This custom, received directly from Paganism, cannot fail to recall to mind the old descriptions of the heathen temples and altars, which are seldom mentioned by the ancients without the epithet perfumed or incensed. In some of the principal churches, where one sees at one view a great number of altars, all smoking at once with clouds of incense, how natural is it to fancy oneself transported into the temple of some heathen deity, or that of the Paphian Venus described by Virgil :— -Ubi templum illi, centumque Sabao Thure calent aræ, sertisque recentibus halant.-Æn. i. 420. In the old relievos, where any heathen sacrifice is represented, we never fail to observe a boy in sacred habit, (which was always white,) attending upon the priest, with a little chest or box in his hands, in which this incense was kept for the use of the altar. Da mihi thura, puer, pingues facientia flammas.-Ovid. Trist. v. 5. In a picture found at Herculaneum, a boy wearing a white tunic, which descends to his knees, bears in one hand a dish with the offering, and in the other a wreath of flowers, which the priest is about to receive and present to the god. In the same manner, in the Church of Rome, there is always a boy in a surplice, waiting on the priest at the altar, with the sacred utensils, and among the rest the "Thuribulum," or vessel of incense, which, as it is smoaking, the priest, with many ridiculous motions and crossings, waves several times around, and over the altar, during the different parts of the service. The next thing that arrests the attention of a stranger, is the use of holy water; for nobody ever enters or quits a church, without being either sprinkled by the priest, who attends for that purpose on solemn days, or else serving himself with it from a vessel, usually of marble, placed just at the door, and not unlike one of our baptismal fonts. This practice is so evidently a remnant of paganism, that Romanists themselves hesitate not to admit it. The Jesuit De la Cerda, in his notes on a passage of Virgil,* where this practice is mentioned, says, "Hence was derived the custom of holy church, to provide purifying or holy water at the entrance of the churches." The " Aquaminarium," or "Amula," says Montfaucon," was a vase of holy water, placed by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves with." (Montfauc. Antiquit. vol. ii.) The same vessel was by the Greeks called pippanion: two of which, the one gold, the other silver, were given by Croesus to the temple of Apollo at Delphi; and the custom of sprinkling themselves was so necessary a part of all their religious offices, that the method of excommunication seems to have been by prohibiting to offenders the approach and use of the holy water-pot. (Vid. Æschinorat, contra Ctesiphon.) The very composition of this holy water was the same also among the heathens, as it is now among the Roman Catholics, being nothing more than a mixture of salt with common water. (Theocr. x8. 95.) The form of the sprinkling brush, too, called by the ancients "aspersorium," or " 'aspergillum," and much the same with that the priests now make use of, may be seen in relievos, or ancient coins, wherever the insignia or emblems of the pagan priesthood are described. Before the commencement of high-mass, (or the Messa Cantata, as it is called,) the priest standing in front of the altar, takes in his hand the aspersorio, and sprinkles the holy water with which it is filled, towards the congregation; after this he proceeds to the performance of the service.........Pursuing his survey of a (Roman) Catholic church, a stranger next finds his attention arrested by a number of lamps and candles, constantly burning before the shrines and images of saints; a sight which will not only surprise him by its novelty, but also supply him with another example of the conformity between the Romish and Pagan worship, by recalling to his memory * "Spargens rore levi, &c." many passages of the heathen writers, where lamps and candles are described as continually burning before the altars and statues of their deities. Herodotus tells us of the Egyptians (who, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, first introduced the use of lights or lamps into their temples,) that they had a yearly festival, called, from its principal ceremony, "the lighting up of candles:" but there is scarcely a single festival at Rome, which might not for the same reason be called by the same name. The primitive writers frequently expose the absurdity of this heathenish custom. "They light up candles to God," says Lactantius, "as if He lived in the dark; and do they not deserve to pass for madmen, who offer lamps to the Author and Giver of light !"-In the collections of old inscriptions, we find many instances of donations from private persons, of lamps and candlesticks to the temples and altars of the heathen gods; a custom which still exists in modern Rome, where each church abounds with lamps of massive silver, and sometimes even of gold, the gifts of princes and other persons of distinction. It is astonishing to see how great a number of this kind are perpetually burning before the altars of the principal saints, or miraculous images; as St. Anthony of Padua, or our Lady of Loretto; as well as the vast profusion of wax candles with which the churches are illuminated on every festival. On such occasions, the high altar, covered with gold and silver plate, brought out of the treasuries of the Church, and stuck full of wax-lights, disposed in beautiful figures, looks more like the rich sideboard of some great prince, decked out for a feast, than an altar for Divine worship. A POSTSCRIPT TO THE PAPERS ON POPERY AND PAGANISM. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. As you have kindly inserted my first series of extracts on Popery and Paganism, it may be necessary to remark, that those which I forwarded last week, though they appear at full length in Evans's Classical Tour, are copied with only a few variations from Middleton's Letter, and Blunt's Vestiges of Ancient Manners discoverable in Modern Italy. Mr. Evans makes no secret of his having availed himself, both in this and other parts of his work, of the labours of his predecessors. I think it right to mention this to you; but I apprehend there will be no necessity of making any comment upon it in the Christian Observer. D. D. W. **We did not receive this note till the extracts alluded to were in the printer's hands. We disagree with D. D. W. that there is "no necessity of making any comment " upon the information contained in it. We consider that there is a necessity, in justice to Mr. Evans, who acknowledges his obligations; to Mr. Poynder, Mr. Blunt, and other authors who have written on the same subject; and also to our correspondent himself, who has furnished the above explanation, which should have been given at the beginning. We have not read Mr. Evans's work; and D. D. W. has perhaps not read Mr. Poynder's; we did not therefore institute a comparison between them; nor do we know that D. D. W. meant to do so when he said, "In no work with which I am acquainted, (not excepting Middleton's Letter from Rome,) is the conformity between Popery and Paganism so fully and distinctly set forth as in Evans's Modern Classical Tour through Italy and Sicily." He speaks only of works with which he is acquainted; and gives only his own opinion. Had his statement been general, we should have taken the liberty of adding a note on the claims of Mr. Poynder's "Popery in Alliance with Heathenism;" in which the question is discussed in detail and systematically. It is clearly proved by the authors who have written on this subject, that various Popish usages and notions, especially in Italy, are traceable to a Pagan source; but we must repeat, what we have remarked on former occasions, that this analogy has been stretched beyond its true limits; and that some Protestant writers, in exhibiting the corruptions of Popery, have inadvertently fallen into the trap baited for them by Gibbon and Dr. Conyers Middleton, whose object was to wound Christianity through the sides of Popery. The following particulars have been specified among others, in proof-to use Middleton's words-that "the religion of the present Roman Catholics is derived from their heathen ancestors;" namely, the burning of incense, the sprinkling of holy water, the burning of lights upon the altar, votive or free-will offerings, hallowed vestments, alleged miracles, places of refuge for criminals, solemn processions, superstitious reverence for pretended Bethesdas, and the casting out of devils. But it is an unquestionable historical fact, that the early corrupters of the Gospel endeavoured to embody the rites of Judaism; and most of the particulars above enumerated were spurious imitations of things once hallowed and of divine appointment; but which were set aside as "beggarly elements" when the veil of the Temple was rent. They had done their office; the types were superseded by the anti-types; and Popery, in affecting Judaism, threw off Christianity. But mark the unfair and insidious use which infidel writers have made of these facts. Middleton, whom we fear we must consider as a disguised infidel, undertook to shew that the ceremonials above-enumerated were pure heathenism; all the while meaning it be inferred that the Jewish sacrifices, incense burning, lighting of lamps, sprinkling, sacred offerings, hallowed vestments, cities of refuge, and the like, were superstitious and not divinely appointed institutions. So evident was Middleton's object in tracing Papal ceremonies, not to a perversion of abolished Judaism, but to Paganism, with a view to invalidate the Divine authority of the Old Testament, and with it of the New also, that Gibbon gloated over the book, which he calls " Dr. Middleton's agreeable Letter from Rome." (Chap. xxviii. of the Decline and Fall.) He had just said, "The worship practised and inculcated by Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, &c., is so extremely pure and spiritual, that their declamations against the Pagan ceremonies sometimes glance against the Jewish." The facts, when rightly understood, damage neither Judaism nor Chris tianity. In the early days of the world's history there were divine revelations and appointments, among which sacrifices were conspicuous, and these we can scripturally trace back to the days of Cain and Abel. These primitive institutions were soon corrupted; and as tradition became faint, Paganism built up its mass of monstrosities, though still retaining some distorted relics of early revelations. It pleased God, in ordaining the Levitical economy, to command sacrifices, and with them perhaps some of the anciently appointed rites which heathenism had depraved. In succeeding times some of the Jewish rites were imitated in Pagan falsifications; but it was to the Jewish rites, not the Pagan falsifications, that the Judaising Christians, and afterwards many of the Fathers, looked as a model for Christian worship; till at length grew up the whole ceremonial system of Popery. No person can compare a Jewish synagogue, with its altar, candles, vestments, incense, chanting, and intricate rites, with the fitting up and ritual of a Popish chapel, without perceiving that the latter is intended to imitate the former; blending, however, the Temple service with that of the Synagogue; as in the sacrifice of the mass, under a dispensa tion in which, the New Testament declares, there is but one high-priest, and one propitiatory sacrifice. But Judaism was not desecrated by idolatry; and in this and several other respects Popery has borrowed from Paganism. We only wish to point out the clear distinction between those things which might be borrowed from superseded Judaism, and those for which there was no precedent in ancient holy writ. To speak of the former customs as heathen, is to disparage the Old Testament; they were Jewish, and in their day, Divinely appointed; but they were not to be caricatured by man's inventions under the New Testament dispensation. The line of distinction is not, however, always well defined; for a large proportion of the ancient Christians being adult converts from Paganism, many heathen notions were foisted upon Christianity; while the converted Jews also were for introducing portions of the Mosaic ritual. Thus grew up that complicated system which terminated in Popery; and which it was the special design of the Reformation to subvert, bringing men back to scriptural simplicity of doctrine and worship. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. THE RECTOR IN SEARCH OF A CURATE. The Rector in Search of a Curate. By A CHURCHMAN. 1843. (Continued from page 637.) IN the concluding extract from this 'the chariot of Israel and the "Mr. Scattermore had been brought up by his father, a respectable linendraper, to his own trade. His first religious impressions were produced by the sermons of a popular preacher, whose church he occasionally attended. But as this church was at a considerable distance, and he could hear at none in the immediate neighbourhood either the ing; and being introduced to several |