revelation, assured us of divine truth in religion for ever.

The work of God then, needed no reformation. If men's morals were bad, they should have been corrected, but religion should not have been changed. In a word, as Bishop Smith of Kentucky, has so well said, "Reform ation should have taken place in the church, not out of it." Let my friend twist the words of Christ as he pleases, he can find nothing like them in human language. Christ was God and his word is what it purports to be. He is with his church all days, until the consummation of ages. The heavens and the earth may pass away, but his word will never pass away. The worse we become, the more refractory and insubordinate, the farther from apostolic times and fervor and purity, the more need have we of authority to control us. So that the power of the church to maintain unity of faith, which Christ so much desired for his disciples, is, at least, as necessary now as it has ever been. The necessity of submitting to the church does not destroy liberty, while, on the contrary, the sources of error and contentions, among sects which undertake to judge for themselves, are endlessly multiplied.__Christ foresaw the time when even the apostles would dispute. He knew the itching of the Greeks for novelty, and their proneness to disputation-always learning and never coming to the truthtearing down to-day, and building up to-morrow: one wave of error and doubt following another, and washing away every doctrine, and creed, and sect, in its turn; and he therefore said: "Hear the church." My friend argued in the commencement of this controversy, that since there were as good men among Protestants as among Catholics, why should there be any argument? Let him answer that question since he is the challenger. I cheerfully admit the fact, but what is the inference? Why that those Protestants were better than their principles. Every man who follows out the Protestant principles may be bad. He may find his own code of morals as well as his doctrinal code, in the Bible. Because if he choose to interpret the Bible for himself, in morals as well as in faith, he may argue from it in favor of the lawfulness of any thing he pleases. And is it not true that certain vi cious acts are done by some men on the pretence of their being allowed by scripture? I could adduce hundreds of instances of the strong and terrible delusions and crimes, for which their victims persuaded themselves they found a sanction in the Bible. And if the sincerely pious, the humane and charitable of Protestant communions ask themselves the question: "are the virtues I strive to practice, the fruits of my religion?" they would find that their peculiar tenets have no influence on their conduct. Their piety and the purity of their morals are the effects of naturally good dispositions, of virtuous associations, of principles, which they hold in common with Catholics, a reverence for the divinity and a desire for future happiness, a sense of honor, decorum, propriety, &c.

In this kind of virtue even pagans have been eminent, but their virtue is no proof of the goodness of their religion. Aristides was just, Scipio chaste, Regulus patriotic, Plato sober, Cincinnatus unambitious, Titus, the delight of the human race, and Antoninus, pious and yet they were all idolaters! There are, thank heaven, conservative principles in man's bosom, which correct in conduct, what is wrong in principle. But if we sincerely desire to know the fruits of the reformation, we have only to ask its authors. Hear, then, what

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Luther was compelled to acknowledge upon this subject. "We see," says he, in his sermon the 2nd Sunday in Advent, "that through the malice of the Devil, men are now more avaricious, more cruel, more disorderly, more insolent, and much more wicked, than they were under popery." .""If any one wish, says Musculus, to see a multitude of knaves, disturbers of the public peace, &c. let him go to a city, where the gospel is preached in its purity, (he means a reformed city) for it is clearer than the light of day, that there never were pagans more vicious and disorderly, than those professors of the gospel." "The thing," says Melancthon, "speaks for itself in this country among the reformed; their whole time is devoted to intemperance and drunkenness, (immanibus poculis). So deeply are the people sunk into barbarity and ignorance, that many of them would imagine they should die in the night, if they should chance to fast in the day." Ad capt. vi. Mat. Neither was the growth of vice and ignorance confined to Germany. They grew wherever the seeds of the reformation were permitted to take root. "In this nation" (England) says Stubbs, after he had made the tour of the island, "I found a general decay of good works, or rather a plain defection, or falling away from God." (Motives to good works, An. 1596.) But hear how the eloquent Erasmus describes the fruits of the reformation. He was indeed a Catholic, but a Catholic whom the Protestants allow to have been impartial. He was an eye and ear witness to the introduction and progress of the reformation, observed its workings with the eye of a philosopher, and has marked them down with the accuracy of a candid and correct historian. "And who," he says, are the gospel people? Look around you and shew me any who has become a better man. Show me one who, once a glutton, is now turned sober, one who, before violent, is now meek; one who, before avaricious, is now generous; one who, before impure, is now chaste;-I can point out multitudes, who have become far worse than they were before. In their assemblies, you never see any of them heave a sigh; shed a tear; or strike his breast, even on the days that are sacred to affliction. Their discourses are little else, but calumnies against the priesthood. They have abolished confession, and few of them confess their sins even to God. They have abrogated fasting; and they wallow in sensuality. They have become Epicureans, for fear of being Jews. They have cast off the yoke of human institutions; and along with it, they have shaken off the Lord. So far from being submissive to bishops, they are disobedient to the civil magistrates. What tumults and seditions mark their conduct! For what trifles do they fly to arms! St. Paul commanded the first christians to shun the society of the wicked; and behold! the reformers seek most the society of the most corrupted. These are their delight. The gospel now flourishes forsooth! because priests and monks take wives in opposition to human laws and despite of their sacred vows. Own it is folly to exchange evils for evils, and madness to exchange small evils for great ones. Ep. 47. Lib. 31. John Wesley says, speaking of his own time not one hundred and fifty years ago, "A dissipated age (such as is the present perhaps beyond all that ever were, at least that are recorded in history) is an age wherein God is generally forgotten. And a dissipated nation, (such as England is at present, in a superlative degree) is a nation, a vast majority of which has not God in all their thoughts.' We therefore speak an unquestionable truth, when

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we say, there is not on the face of the earth another nation (at least that we have ever heard of) so perfectly dissipated and ungodly; not only so totally without God in the world, but so openly setting him at defiance. There never was an age, that we read of in history, since Julius Cæsar, since Noah, since Adam, wherein dissipation or ungodliness did so generally prevail, both among high and low, rich and poor." Neither would it be well in a Protestant, in order to apologise for the disorders, which I have mentioned, to say that they were only the accidental evils of a moment, evils of a period of change and fermentation." What! the first fruits of a reformation disorder! -the first fruits of a system of piety licentiousness!-the first fruits of the reestablishment of the law of truth, impiety! Surely such an apology, and yet it is often made, is absolutely weak! There are multiplied attestations of it. "Miserable,” says Neal, speaking of the time of Elizabeth, and when the fermentations of the revolutionary violence of the reformation had subsided, "miserable and heathenish was the condition of the country in regard to religion." That you may form some notion of their condition, hear in what manner the inhabitants of London, in a petition presented to the parliament during this reign, express themselves. "In one half our churches," they say, we have watchmen that have no eyes; and clouds that have no water; and in the other half, there is scarcely one tenth man that takes conscience to wait on his charge. Whereby, the Lord's day is often totally neglected; ignorance increaseth, and wickedness cometh upon us like an armed man.' 99 "In the county of Cornwall," Neal says, "there were at this period a hundred and forty clergymen, not one of whom could preach a sermon." The situation of other counties was nearly similar. Judge of the consequences. I have here the authentic documents, Luther's and Wesley's works, to prove what I have cited. Here is the great father of the reformation; with Melancthon at his side, both very unghostly looking personages, on their knees, before an image of the crucifix!! (Holds up a large and old volume, and describes a circle, with his person, exhibiting the pictured title page, at which there was continued laughter.) This edition was published by Lawrence Schenck at Wittemberg, in 1561. Here is image worship by Martin Luther and his co-reformer! and beasts, and monsters all around them. Mr. C. says that the popes might have been much worse men than he has described them. That bad acts are soon forgotten, and good ones more apt to be chronicled. This is, unfortu nately, not the case, as history but too well attests. The virtues are too unobtrusive to attract public notice, and Shakspeare, who was a close observer of human nature, says: If I can quote him correctly; "The evil, that men do, lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones."

I am sorry to say, my friends, Professor Biggs informs me, that want of time has prevented him from examining the works of Liguori, in reference to my opponent's accusation, based upon this book. There is a gentleman of learning and integrity, in this city, who is not a Catholic, Mr. Alexander Kinmont, who will devote some time to it, and who will be here at half-past four, P. M. and give us the requisite information. I again say, I hope a large audience will be present at the denouement. My friend told us he slurred over what was worst in the charges against Catholics. He has taken a new mode of doing this. He has, indeed, said the worst, and helps it by a vague, but not a slur

ring insinuation, that there is more. His translation would make the fallen priests' sin as bad as that of the Corinthian that afflicted by his scandalous crime the fervent christians of antiquity, instead of being of a different and less heinous kind. I appreciate his motives. The charge is, as I have already stated-the church punishes severely for the slightest fault, and excommunicates the impenitent offender, giving him up to the civil tribunal, for the punishment, in such cases, inflicted in some countries by the law of the land.

He says, we find from the decrees of councils, that scandal has existed in the church. It is true; and it is also true that Christ predicted its existence. What is the world but the theatre of falsehood and truth? a field of tares and wheat?

As for the other volume which the gentleman has brought up, the Secreta Monita of the Jesuits, I pronounce it an infamous forgery. It has been proved a hundred times, that no priest had any hand in that document. "The Monita Secreta, or private instructions, a publication sometimes brought forward against the Jesuits," says the learned Charles Butler, of Lincoln's Inn, "is a most infamous work, and wholly beneath notice. Neither the original, nor any certified copy of this work, was ever produced; no circumstances respecting its dis covery, ever proved; no collateral fact, to establish its authenticity, ever published. There does not live the Jesuit, or the scholar of a Jesuit, who, if any one of the doctrines which it inculcates, or any one practice which it recommends, were proposed to him, would not spurn it with indignation.” Francis Xavier was a Jesuit; our first archbishop, Carroll, was a Jesuit; they were both worthy of being numbered among the best of men, and it was true, not forged, instructions that made them so. The copy of this notorious slander, on one of the most virtuous, learned, and apostolic societies that have ever existed, the gentleman informs us, was brought to this country from France by the secretary of La Fayette! and what was the religion of this secretary? A Jacobin, an infidel, one of the anti-christian conspirators, that would have blotted all denominations of the followers of Jesus, as well as the Catholic, from the whole world? By priests, it it well known, that such men meant ministers of every creed; and against all, but chiefly against those best able by learning and virtue to confound them, was their hostility directed.

A greater than La Fayette, as a statesman, I mean Thomas Jefferson, said of the Presbyterians,-"Their ambition and tyranny would tolerate no rival if they had power. The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant, of all sects, the most tyrannical and am bitious; ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could now he obtained, to put the torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere the flames in which their oracle, Calvin, consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not subscribe the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinistic creed. They pant to re-establish by law, that Holy Inquisition, which they can now only infuse into public opinion." p. 322, letter to William Short. Will my friend take this testimony to the letter? Jefferson had more opportunities for judging than La Fayette, and he knew this country better. But, sir, I agree with La Fayette, that all priests are to be dreaded in this sense; that none of them should be allowed a particle of political ascendency in this country. Our

main danger is from ambitious priests of various denominations. When they confine themselves to their only sphere of usefulness, they are the best friends of mankind; when they depart from it, the worst tyrants of the darkest ages of Paganism were not more intolerant than they. A hyena is a lamb, to a minister of Christ, who casts off the livery and the peaceful spirit of his master, and turns round to denounce and abuse his fellow-men for obeying the sacred dictates of conscience, and adhering to a religion, which, no matter how much persecuted and calumniated, they believe to be divine. I could say much more on this subject, but it is not the most suitable time.

The charge has been made against all denominations, but my opponent has singled from among them the Catholic, and made it the scape-goat, to bear the sins of all to oblivion. I must however remind the audience that the Methodist conference, held, not so many years ago, at Baltimore, denounced the Episcopalians, for contempla- . ting an alliance with England, to subvert the liberties of this country; and alleged what they conceived to be no mean_proof of treasonable designs on the part of the, then, obnoxious Episcopalians. This proscriptive spirit is as old as Christianity. History informs us that the inoffensive disciples of Jesus Christ, even in the golden age of the apostles, were accused, convicted, and put to the most horrible death, precisely on the charge of hating all mankind," odio humani generis convicti sunt. Tacitus Annal. lib. xv. This celebrated historian terms the christians "sontes, reos, novissima exempla meritos-perflagitia invisos," and calls their religion itself" exitialis superstitio." They were, consequently, dressed in the skins of wild beasts, and thus caricatured, the Pagans set their dogs upon them. Jesus Christ, himself, when the Jews could convict him of no crime, was charged by them with not being a friend to Cæsar.-Pilate, who 'found no fault' in Christ, was willing to release him, but the Jews cried out, "if thou release this man, thou art not Cæsar's friend;" that moment the just one sank, oppressed beneath the malice and slander of his enemies! We, as his disciples, can expect no better fate than our master's. He foretold all that now befalls us. "Blessed are you," says he, "when men shall revile you and persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against you, untruly, for my sake: be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." St. Matth. V. 11, 12.

We have, the gentleman says, no authentic translation of the scriptures. This is not true. We have a Latin translation, the vulgate. That is one authentic translation. We have, moreover, an approved translation in the vernacular, sanctioned by all the bishops in the United States, and for sale in every city in the union. But if, by an authentic bible, we mean one perfectly immaculate, in point of typographical execution and mechanical neatness, I ask the gentleman, can he pretend that any Protestant denomination has such a one? Yet my friend says, notwithstanding the facts I quoted yesterday morning, respecting a new bible, that they have a bible that is sufficient. If that is the case, where is the use of a new translation! He speaks of Sixtus' and Clement's bible. That only shews that the popes never taught that their personal opinions were to be received, as articles of faith, as my friend would persuade us they did. Private authority should not presume to alter the authorised version. This was the amount of the prohibition.