quent occasion he declared that "the Pope | education. The statute book has however was so full of devils, that he spit them, and ceased to be the vehicle of scurrility, not blew them from his nose." In his apostro- only in Great Britain, but in the United phe to Pope Paul III. he uses the follow- States: during upwards of thirty years the ing:† * ** * * calm and steady process of critical investiIn his subsequent writings he uses nick- gation has continued to rub away the stains names where he can, and would not vouch- which the reckless spirit of a bad and dissafe to the adherents of the ancient church astrous age had fastened upon those who any name but that of Papists. I do not now were exhibited as too contemptible for assoenter upon the question of his doctrine or ciation, too wicked for endurance, though his mission; but I assert, that be the errors not too poor to be victims of rapacity; for of those whom we oppose what they may, such was the state to which the Catholic the bestowal of a nickname is an evidence subjects of the British crown were reduced of the want of common courtesy; kindness by the potent spell of nicknames, and perand charity are violated by the persons who severing audacity of unrestrained calumny. continue to use the term, especially in the The plots with which they were charged spirit which gave it origin. It was in the are now acknowledged by the highest ausame spirit that Luther in 1534 called Henry thorities to have been fictions: the credit of VIII. of England, "a fool," "an idiot," "the the Rev. Titus Oates, and the inscription of most brutal of swine and asses." It was in the London pillar, have vanished for ever. the same spirit that when he came forth, in Great Britain no longer enacts laws to pre1521, from his Patmos, as he called the place vent the growth of Popery, but to emanciof his retreat, he declared in his sermon in pate Roman Catholics, she no longer conthe church at Wittemberg, "It was the fiscates the property of Papists, neither does word, whilst I slept quietly and drank my she adjudge Romish ecclesiastics to be beer with my dear Melancthon and Ams- felons, nor will her polished society permit dorf that gave the papacy such a shock," the feelings of their associates to be woundand that, when he threatened to re-established by the vulgar phraseology, to perpetuate the Mass, he asks his associates "What hurt will the Popish Mass do you? It was in this spirit that he styled Rome, Babylon, the Pope, the man of sin, the beast, &c., and the church, the whore of Babylon, &c. Indeed, he left scarcely room to any succeeding imagination to extend the nick-nomenclature.

Yet, though to him is due the invention, Great Britain has the discredit of introducing this vocabulary into her public legislation, and her high authority made that fashionable, which in its origin and its essence was vulgar, unseemly, and uncharitable. The object was to express contempt, which is not only unkind but is never sought after, save by those who are envious, vaunting, or puffed up. It contains no argument, but betrays a symptom, equivocal, it is true, of its absence; for it is generally observed that he who is anxious to fasten a nickname upon his adversary, seldom makes the effort until he has failed in adducing a reason. The works of the principal English Protestant divines will go down to other days, lamentable monuments of the fact, that a perverse fashion is able to contaminate with rude and uncharitable vulgarity, minds of the first order, and of the best

and to revive which an effort however is made by the over righteous; who eaten up with the zeal which devours them, lament the relaxation of the penal code, and the prospect of parliamentary reform; whilst they shed tears for the abominations of negro slavery, and muster their forces to obtain for that degenerate race, the sympathy which they denied to those with whom they had a more intimate relation. Whilst they bewail the destitution of the negro in Jamaica, they vociferate their abuse of the Irish papists, and exhibit a genuine specimen of the spirit with which they are possessed, in preventing the collection of funds for the relief of the starving Catholic population of Ireland, because the forlorn beings will not forego the convictions of their consciences, or purchase temporary relief by abominable hypocrisy. These are the men who at the other side of the Atlantic, would by the irritation of nicknames, add rancour to the excessive bitterness of sectarian animosity.

The colonies of Great Britain necessarily partook of the spirit of the mother country. Hence in the act of 1696-7 "for making aliens free of this part of the province, (Carolina,) and for granting liberty of conscience to all Protestants." We read in the enacting part, "That all Christians which now are, or hereafter may be in the province. (Papists only excepted) shall enjoy the full, free, and undisturbed liberty of their con

shades were very dark; it was no common Christ; that this divine Saviour commisspectacle. You have seen the Irish Cath- sioned his Apostles and those whom they olic, upon his arrival in America, legally should associate to their body, and the redegraded to the level of the negro-slave; gular successors in that tribunal, to testify and this in a province where, when all those doctrines to the world; and that under around, in every other settlement of this his protection, though a few individuals country, the most heartless bigotry held un- might err, yet that infallibly the vast majorestricted sway, Catholics, under the spi- rity of this tribunal will always testify that ritual administration of Jesuits, first kindled which came down from the beginning; and at the fire of Christian charity that torch of that the doctrine of Christ was to be ascerreligious freedom which was subsequently tained by the testimony of this tribunal, and quenched in their own tears. Do! my not by the conjectures of individuals! When friends, allow me the poor, but the gratify- they who, with Luther, separated from the ing consolation of cherishing, with fondness great body, and opposed the tribunal, unthat increases with my years, the memory dertook to judge, each for himself, the of those good Catholic freemen of Mary- meaning of the sacred volume, they deland, who erected for the American citizens stroyed all claim of authority in any tribuof after times that beacon light, which, nal, to require of any individual submission though extinguished by others, yet, after to its testimony, or to learn from it: all the days of captivity had passed away, their members claimed to be each taught blazed forth upon the first sacrifices having of God; vast numbers claimed the privibeen offered upon the altar of liberty, as did lege of divine inspiration, and whilst, with that sacred flame which the priests of Israel one accord, they all proclaimed that no ashid upon their going to Babylon, but which sembly was infallibly correct in the interwas miraculously reproduced in the days pretation of the sacred volume, nor even in of Nehemias. Yes! my friends, the asso-ascertaining what books were inspired by ciates may sneer at me, for my man-wor- the Holy Ghost, yet each individual spoke ship," if they will; they may cry, "to the and acted as if he was himself infallible. law and the testimony," whose meaning The Church of England having separated they mistake; they may appear zealous for from the Catholic Church, which she acthe honour of that God by whose charity cused of error, could claim no higher priviand whose justice those good men, whose lege for herself; and she felt exceedingly memory I hold in benediction, were led; awkward and ridiculous in declaring that they may proclaim me an idolater, but, in they who, imitating her own example, difthis respect, I feel in their regard what an fered from her in doctrine, and separated old Irish Catholic chieftain expressed even from her, were heretics. Every reasonable after a field of disaster, where his son had person must instantly perceive that it would fallen in the glorious discharge of a noble be, in this state of things, palpably absurd duty, "I would not give my dead son for to expect unity of doctrine; or for any perall the living heroes they possess." No! son to undertake, upon those principles, to my friends! That single clause of the law determine who was right, or who was which they enacted to prohibit nicknames wrong. Every man gave his opinion as to in 1649, is of more value, in my estimation, what Christ taught, but no one could be than if all the mail stages in the Union certain that his opinion was the doctrine of should be obliged to stop, from midnight the Apostles; because there was scarcely a on Saturday to midnight on Sunday; than if doctrine upon which all were agreed. The every man, woman, and child was com- Bible was for them, not a book of peace pelled, on the Lord's day, to live on cold and reconciliation, but was an occasion of food, and all the mothers to be prohibited dispute and discord. Notwithstanding the from kissing their children on the Sabbath, dictation of Luther, the divisions of the conas it is called! Excuse me for this ebulli-tinental Protestants daily multiplied. And tion of feeling, into the restraint of which I have not yet been subdued.

I need not inform you, that the changes in religion, which I cannot be expected to call a reformation, did not stop exactly at that point which they who made the first alterations thought proper to prescribe. The principles of the Catholic Church are, that faith is the belief of what God has taught; that all men are bound to believe his reve lation; that it was perfected by Jesus

in spite of the power of the British government, the Church of England found herself assailed by a more restless and a more worrying foe than the Papists, by the Reformers of the Reformation. I shall not enter into their history; my object is merely to continue the history of nicknames, and to discover the spirit which has preserved them.

The various divisions of Presbyterians and Independents, who desired to purify

England under the name of the Church of Rome. It was a burlesque upon the Catechism of the English Protestant Church.

lier. Ques. Who gave you that name? Ans. My seducers and deceivers in my innocence, wherein I was made a member of the Church of Rome, and consequently a limb of Antichrist, an enemy to all godliness, a child of the Devil, an inheriter of the kingdom of darkness, amongst the infernal spirits that rule in the air of this terrestrial globe."

the Church of England from what they called the dregs of Popery, now turned the weapons of that unfortunate church against herself. She had abused Papists, and they" Ques. What is your name? Ans. Cava called her members Papists in disguise; all that the Church of England had said of Romanists and the Beast, the Puritans gave back to herself, with such usury as would have contented the most demure and sober-minded and avaricious money-lender. Thus, in their mutual scurrility, there was one neutral ground on which they met, one postulate was fully conceded by each to the other, viz.: That no abnse could be too bad for the Papists; and that the highest offence which either could give to the other would be, to assert that it bore some mark of the beast. So that, even in their mutual conflicts, the Roman Catholic Church was the greatest sufferer; and men became accustomed to consider the propriety of our degradation as perfectly unquestionable. Allow me, however disgusting they may be, to give you a few specimens of the manner in which the Puritans made their onslaught.

Bishop Bancroft, in his Dangerous Positions, b. 2, c. 9, gives us the following specimen of the manner in which the nonconformists assailed the English Protestant Church: "Christ's religion is fondly patched with the Pope's; the communion book is an imperfect book, culled and picked out of that Romish dunghill, the Portyse and Mass-book. The sacraments are wickedly mangled and profaned; they eat not the Lord's supper, but play a pageant of their own to blind the people; their pomps, rites, laws, and traditions are anti-Christian, carnal, beggarly Popish fooleries, Romish relics, and rags of Antichrist, dregs and remnants of transformed Popery; Pharisaical outward faces and vizzards, remnants of Romish Antichrist, a cursed leaven of a cursed blasphemous priesthood, known liveries of Antichrist; cursed patches of Popery and idolatry, they are worse than lousie."

Nalson, in his collections, v. 1, p. 499, gives us the following: "Cardinals, patriarchs, primates, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, deans, and innumerable such vermin, a monster of which monstrous body our (English Protestant) hierarchy is never came from God,-but rather from the Pope and the Devil; Diabolus CACAVIT illos."

A compound of holy writers, whose initials gave the word smectymnius, thus describe the English Protestant Church: "This many-headed monster, **** is the beast against which we fight in the covenant. Thy mother, Papacy, shall be made childless amongst harlots."

In Case's sermon, at Milk Street, September 30, 1643, the clergy of the Protestant Church of England are called "swearing, drunken, unclean priests, that taught nothing but rebellion in Israel, and caused the people to abominate the sacrifice of the Lord. Arminian, Popish, idolatrous, vile wretches, such as, had Job been alive, he would not have set with the dogs of his flock."

Vicar, in his Jehovah Jerah calls them "a stinking heap of atheistical Roman rubbish, a rotten rabble of slanderous priests, and spurious bastard sons of Belial, who by their affected ignorance and laziness, by their most abominable lives and conversations, had made the Lord's ordinance to be even abhorred by the people."

In 1720, a Church of England Protestant, One of their orators declaiming before complaining of the violent abuse of the the Parliament on September 24, 1656, clergy of that church, by those Puritans who praising God for delivering them from the charged them with ignorance, debauchery, Protestant Episcopal Church of England, and villany, after mentioning those charges, described the observances of that species adds, "But this the clergy can forgive, proof Protestants. "Altar genuflexions, cring- vided their enemies would forbear to charge ings, with crossings, and all that Popish them with vices of Popery: or a reconciliatrash and trumpery"-"the removal of tion with the Church of Rome, *** they these insupportable burdens countervailed will always go on steadily to oppose Popery, for the blood and treasure shed and spent though they should be traduced as favourers in the late distractions." The following of it, by those very Presbyterians, who in curious scrap from p. 25 of the "Cavalier's the day of distress, were busy in breaking Catechism," exhibits the spirit in which down those fences by which alone it was to the assault was made upon the Church of be kept out." This writer in another place