"What gives general councils their infallibility?" The power and omniscience of God: the Holy Ghost abiding with the church, all days, until the consummation of the world." Can a thousand fallibles make one infallible?" Yes; and, according to your own showing, every one of twelve fallibles made an infallible; for you allowed that the twelve apostles were, individually, and of course, collectively, infallible. And, if you need more homely illustrations, does it follow, that because one thread cannot keep a seventy-four to her moorings, that a cable consisting of a thousand_strong_threads cannot do so? What one cannot do, many can, humanly speaking: how much more so when there is a divine promise: "Behold I am with you all days; the gates of hell shall not prevail against you." (Mark xvi. 18.) I never said the Jansenists were Roman Catholics. I objected to Du Pin from the very commencement of this controversy, on the ground of his being a Jansenist. The Jansenists have been condemned by the popes. Hence, they lose no opportunity of insulting them, exaggerating their faults and suppressing their virtues. My friend, then, followed a notoriously treacherous guide, when he trusted himself, and his cargo of notions about the popes, to such a helmsman as Du Pin. But, bad as the Jansenists are, they are too learned in church history and in the scriptures, to become members of any Protestant sect. Their magnificent work, The Perpetuity of the Catholic Faith, is, probably, the most learned production recorded in the annals of religious controversy. I should be happy to lend it to any gentleman of this assembly, and thereby convince him how venerable are the doctrines, which want of knowledge induces some persons to assail. The opinions of all the bishops in the world, are no article of faith. Articles of faith are defined, and they are no longer opinions. "Siquis dixerit;" "If any say " in this manner commence the canons of doctrine to define articles of faith; and they end by the words, “Anathema sit;" in imitation of St. Paul, who said: "Were I, or an angel from heaven, to preach to you any other gospel than what has been preached, let him be anathema." This formula always marks the definitions of Catholic faith, among the acts of general councils. But it will make even the smatterers in theology, the sciolists, I could have almost said, the school-boys of Europe, laugh, to see the gentleman gravely quote Fra Paolo, or Father Paul, the sycophant of the senate of Venice, the excommunicated monk, or, to say all in two words, the "Calvinistic heretic," as he is justly called by the Protestant bishop, Burnet, as his authority for the proceedings of the bishops in the council of Trent. "He hid," says Bossuet, "the spirit of Luther under the frock of a monk." Henry IV. of France detected his hypocrisy, and denounced him to the senate of Venice; and Pallavicini convicted him of three hundred and sixty errors in his pretended history of the council of Trent. I have got Paolo Sarpis' book in English, and will prove on him some, at least, of these errors, if he is quoted again, with his worthy compeers, Smith and Du Pin! Now the truth is, that there were upwards of two hundred and fifty bishops, or prelates, of different nations, nearly two hundred of the most learned theologians, and the ambassadors of many Catholic princes, at this council. It was held in Trent, a free city, and the utmost liberty was allowed in the discussion of the different questions, previously to the definitions of faith. The council met to decide anew, what had been always, every where, and by all believed,

in the Catholic church; and the canon of scripture which it defined, was no other than what had been settled in all the previous councils for upwards of a thousand years; and this the whole Catholic world perfectly understood. What, now, becomes of the gentleman's 48 by 25? Why does he exaggerate in figures when he talks against Catholics, and figure in miniature when he speaks for them? Those beardless youths he speaks of, had, I presume from Italian faces generally, as much of that excrescence as other animals distinguished by a late senator. My friend was quite tender to-day, indeed excessively eloquent, on the subject of marriage. Had he confined himself to its just praise, as the primeval institution of God, on the flowery banks of Eden, without outraging the express declarations of Christ, and the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, in the new law, I would have repeated what I have already said, in acknowledgment of the purity and sanctity of the nuptial union. But, I must borrow his own words, to say, with still more truth, that "I blushed for our audience, and was shocked by the freedom of his attack upon the ordinance of God." The gentleman may talk until the end of the year, and I would meet him at every pause with the words of Christ, Matt. xix. 12; or, if these are not plain enough to the "sensual man who thinketh this virtue foolishness," with those of St. Paul, (1 Cor. vii.) "I would that all men were even as myself." "I say to the unmarried and the widows, it is good for them if they so continue, even as I." (ver. 8.) "He that is with a wife, is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and he is divided. He that is without a wife, is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. (verses 32, 33.) "Art thou loosed from a wife, seek not a wife... if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned: nevertheless, such shall have tribulation of the flesh. But I spare you." (ver. 28.) Can holy writ more unequivocally reprobate all the gentleman's romancing about wedlock, to the proscription of that pure devotedness to the holy offices of the ministry, of which Jesus Christ, St. John, and St. Paul, have left us the brightest examples in their own persons? Mr. C. said: "Dared I to tell, before this assembly, but half that I have learned of that virgin priesthood:" and I, my friends, dared I tell, before this assembly, but half that I have learned, from old Protestant residenters of this city, of that married priesthood, in Elyria, on Lake Erie, and in towns in the interior of this state, without casting the net over heads nearer home, I would fill your souls with tenfold horror! I would advise my friend to tread lightly on these ashes. Holy as marriage is, and holy as I confess it to be, St. Paul advises married people to forego, at certain times, the privileges of that state, to give themselves to prayer. (ver. 5.) The same is commanded in the prophet Joel, xi. 16. The high-priest was forbidden, in Leviticus, to neglect the foregoing injunctions, when he ministered unto the Lord; as, also, to take a widow to wife, but only a virgin. Now, a widow, according to my friend's notion, would have a better title than a virgin to have a highpriest for her husband, inasmuch as she had shown her reverence for the institution of marriage, by a previous union. And, now, let me ask again, why did my opponent labor so hard to give his Protestant hearers, the Paulicians for their ancestors, when it is well known, that these heretics condemned marriage? This, the Catholic church has not done. But, when a vow is made to God, she says, with St.

Paul, (1 Tim. v. 12.) "it is damnable, in either man or woman, to break it." Has my opponent read all these texts? Does he not remember to have read in history, the honor in which the light of reason taught all the nations of the earth to hold virginity, and the privileges to which it was every where entitled? Has he read of scandalous damages recovered in courts, in England, by Reverends, who were mocked to scorn the following Sunday, when they went into the pulpit to preach? Has he read of other reverends, who have had to pay damages for the slanderous reports, put in circulation by their fair companions in weal and woe? Is this the tribulation according to the flesh, of which St. Paul speaks? "The decrees of councils attest that priests have not been such immaculate purities." Well; and what do these records of the civil courts of England, and the domestic annals of broken hearts and blighted honor, attest? As well might the gentleman charge marriage with the shocking excesses, which it did not prevent in David and Solomon, as the law of celibacy with the specks and blemishes of the Catholic priesthood.

In every religion there will be bad men, and by them every virtue will be outraged, but must we on this account blame virtue and expunge it; must we, like Moses descending from Sinai, break the tables of the law, because of a stiff-necked and a revolted people; or, on the contrary, hold up that law before them in terror, remind them of their duty, and reclaim them, by exhibitions of divine justice and mercy, to virtue? "It is essential for a bishop to be a married man." And the gentleman's vote would be withheld from me, because I am a bachelor. Why, sir, St. Paul does not mean that a bishop should be a man of one wife, but that he should have had but one-otherwise, as he was himself unmarried, he would have acted against his own rules. Now I claim to be as clear-sighted, and as well read in the bible, as my friend, and I maintain it is essential a bishop should not be a married man; for he will not then be afraid to bring home from the bed of death the small-pox, the cholera, or the plague, to his wife and children; he will not be prevented by the engrossing care of a family from visiting the "widow and the orphan;" he will have more money to spare for the wants of the poor. "To preside over a christian congregation," says Mr. Campbell, "a bishop should know experimentally the domestic affections and relations; he should study human nature in the bosom of his family; there is a class of feelings which no gentleman of single life can comprehend, or in which he can sympathise, and these are essential to that intimacy (what intimacy!) with all classes, sexes and duties, which his relations to the church often impose upon him." What does all this mean? I am sincerely shocked at this freedom. But if it mean any thing that I should answer, it would mean, that a bishop should be a bachelor to sympathise with a numerous class of christians, viz. old maids; he should have a scolding wife to be able to sympathise with a scolded husband; a sickly wife, an ugly wife, a drinking wife, an arbitrary wife, an ignorant, stupid wife, to know experimentally what husbands suffer in all these domestic relations; he should, and he should not, have children. Can there be any thing more superlatively ridiculous! As well might you exact of the physician, that he should have had all the diseases you may call upon him to cure. A bishop can study his own heart, and as Cicero says, "Timco hominem unius libri ;" if he will not learn

human nature there, he will not learn it any where. I have much more to say on this subject, which queen Elizabeth, Oxford college, (England,) regulations to the "fellows," and Dr. Miller, of Princeton, furnished me; but whether I resume this unpleasant task or not, depends on my learned opponent. I have a large family to provide for, and I try at least to take care of it. Fifty little orphans, in want of an asylum, look to me for bread! and as Christ and St. Paul have taught me to live, while I have ears to hear, and a heart to commiserate the hard lot of the fatherless and motherless, and claims to present in their name to a generous public, so, must I reason and judge, I should continue to live. These little beneficiaries gather around me when I visit them, and they call me by the endearing name of father! and their appealing looks, their grateful smiles, their wants and artlessness and joy excite in me emotions which a virtuous parent well might share, and an unfeeling one, who neglects or abuses his children, well might envy!, I invite my friend to visit these little interesting orphans, and see how an old bachelor gets along among them. Did I really defend white lies? I think not. "One sin, in the sight of heaven is as great as another." This I deny. This doctrine saps the foundation of sound morals; it leaves us no energy for virtu ous effort; it writes the mysterious "Mane, Tecel, Phares," on the wall, for the first and least offence; it has no warrant in scripture. God often speaks of nations filling up the measure of their guilt, and what could this mean, if one sin were as bad in divine estimation, and filled up as much space as a thousand? It is true, He punishes all sins, but not alike; therefore all are not equally heinous in his sight. Mr. C. says, "I wish the gentleman would enable me to deliver myself," &c. You may deliver yourself on any point you please, I have no objection.

His next attempt at proof of immorality, was the allegation that we have destroyed the second commandment, rejecting the law against making graven images, that we may worship creatures, and images of creatures, and introduce idolatry! the invocation of the spirits of dead men and women, &c. &c. My friends, this charge of leaving out the second commandment is very stale, and, no doubt, my Protestant hearers will be astonished to see and hear for themselves that it is utterly unfounded. Here is the Catholic catechism of this diocese: it thus reads. 2. "Which is the first commandment?" Ans. "I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything, that is in the heavens above or the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth: thou shalt not adore them nor serve them." The Douay catechism is equally full, (holds it open,) so are all our bibles. I will display this little catechism here, or I am willing to pitch it among my audience for inspection. They will see that it contains the commandment in full, and that there is nothing in it, in violation of the law of God, on this, or on any other subject. It is an admirable abridgment of faith and morals. If there have been any catechisms published without the commandments in full, it is because they were published for the use of children, whose memories were not to be encumbered by too long answers, when the sense and substance of the precept could be sufficiently expressed in fewer words. As to the division of the commandments, my friend knows that the bible was

not originally divided into chapters and verses as it is at present. But with this question we are not now concerned.

It is not a crime to make an image, if we do not adore and worship it instead of the Creator, who is blessed for ever; otherwise God would have transgressed his own prohibition, for he commanded Moses to make a graven image, namely, the image of a brazen serpent, and to set it up before a people exceedingly prone to idolatry, that they may look on it and be cured of the bites of the fiery serpents that stung them for their murmurings in the wilderness. The divine lawgiver also directed (Exodus xxv.) two images of Cherubim to be made, with their wings overshadowing the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant, towards which the people turned in prayer, and before which Joshua and the ancients of Israel fell flat upon their faces until the evening, at Hai, when they were defeated, for the sin of Achan, by the men of that city; and Joshua said, "Alas, O Lord God," &c. vii. 7. What was the temple of Solomon, built by the special directions of that God who had forbidden the making of graven images to adore and serve them, but a temple of images? Never has any house, perhaps, since or before, not excepting the celebrated picture galleries of the Louvre, abounded more in pictures and likenesses of things in heaven and things on earth, than did that venerable pile, and yet God was not offended, but promised that his ears should be attentive to the prayer of him that prayed in that place, as we read in the book of Kings. The objection is unphilosophical, as well as unscriptural. What, I ask, are the letters G. O. D. but pictures, representing a certain idea? So written language, when first used, was a series of pictures, as every scholar knows; and the bible abounds, like the temple, with these pictorial signs. Again, where is the immorality of looking on the emblem of our dying Savior? Is it not the gospel narrative of his sorrows and his love, condensed? The council of Trent, Sess. xxv. teaches, what every Catholic knows, "that while we venerate the memorials of Christ and his saints, we are not to believe that any divinity or power resides in them." I would, therefore, express in a few words, the motive of our respect for the crucifix, and our sense of its lifelessness and want of power, in the following apostrophe: "Thou canst not see, thou canst not hear, thou canst not help me, but thou remindest me of my God."

Were the objection of my worthy opponent rigorously urged, it would be impiety for the orphan girl to wear around her neck the likeness of a fond, but alas! prematurely deceased mother: or a soldier boy the miniature of the father of his country. The different trades and professions should be arraigned for the idolatrous practice of suspending before their doors the signs of their various occupations. The United States' mint would be a factory of idols, and every moneyholder, in bank notes, or the hard metal, an idolater! Finally, if the Catholics substitute the words "honor and veneration" for "worship," when speaking of the relative respect paid to the emblems of Christ and his saints, yet even the use of this word could be defended from the Bible, Chron. last ch. where the people, as it reads in the Protestant bible, worshiped the Lord and the King, but surely not with the same kind of worship. The exterior act appeared the same, but in the heart, there was distinction of homage. If it be wrong and an outrage to the mediation of Christ to seek inferior intercessors with God, why did Paul ask the prayers of the christians to whom he ad