Augustine speaks, Can. Bap. de consec. 4) are, first, of blood, when a person dies for the Christian faith; secondly, of desire, when there is true conversion of heart, without the means of receiving baptism. Natural water, such as waters from the sea, springs, rivers, and rain, is lawful; artificial water, wine, or saliva, unlawful. Aspersion, immersion, or infusion are all proper. But the water must be blessed on the Saturday before Easter, or Whit-Sunday! (Concil. Trid. 7. 2.) The form is in repeating in Latin the usual words, “I baptize," &c. Any other language may however be employed as well as Latin; and bad grammar does not hinder the effect! The office of baptist is not denied to heretics, infidels, or pagans, if the ceremony be duly observed. There are other cases also which we must not translate. (See Art. 635.) The other regulations for baptism are unobjectionable, and such as our Church does not disclaim.

There is no need to say much of Confirmation as a sacrament. Of the Eucharist, we shall have something more to say. The Gallican Church expressly assents to the doctrine of "the substance of the bread and wine being changed into the substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.' The directions for the Priests who are to make this change are very curious. They respect the propriety of fasting previous; rules to be observed if, not having fasted since the previous midnight, the Priest remembers his having eaten; if he should faint at the altar; if he should at the altar recollect a mortal sin unatoned for. The wine is to be mixed with water, but in a greater proportion of the former; and the wine must be "naturel, et tel qu'on l'exprime du fruit de la vigne." Only consecrated buildings, save a tent or a ship, can be used; but in each case of exception the table "for offering the sacrifice" must have been blessed by a Bishop. The bread must be unleavened, the vessels of gold or of silver, on pain of being deposed. If a Priest should let fall upon the ground any drop of the precious blood, he ought to lick the place with his tongue, scrape the pavement, and place the scrapings behind the altar! If a drop of the precious blood fall upon the table-cloth of the altar, he must wash it three times, and place the water of ablution behind the altar! When this accident happens through negligence, an act of penance is to be imposed on him. (Art. 654.) If any person of fit age refuse to communicate once a-year, at Easter-time, he, or she, is to be deprived the right of entering a Church during life, and of ecclesiastical burial at death. (Concil. Trid. 13. 8.) The refusal of the cup to the laity is thus apologized for. Whereas, inconveniences have arisen from the distribution of the wine, it is simply, therefore, a point of ecclesiastical discipline which the Church may alter, because Jesus Christ is altogether entire under the form of bread, or under that of wine. (Concil. Const. 13.) This sacrament is refused to those who live in a state of concubinage, to public usurers, and to women immodestly dressed. Processions and expositions of the host are limited by the canons of the Gallican Church, and are confined to certain days; they are said to have originated in the desire to mark the triumphs which this sacrament has gained over heretics. But, notwithstanding this, those who meet the host on its way to the chamber of the sick are required to fall down on their knees to adore

Jesus Christ; and to advise passengers, a bell is to be rung, and a flambeau carried.

Penance is founded on the 22d and 23d verses of the xxth chapter of the gospel of St. John. The sacrament consists in the confession of sin, and the willingness to submit to the penance imposed by the Priest. Its form, in the words of absolution. All Priests have received the power, but not all the right of absolution. Every person ought to confess once a year, at Easter. If a man fall sick of the plague, and the life of the Priest is in danger, he may absolve after the confession of one or two sins. (Concil. Trid. 14. 7.—Carthag. iv. 7.-Aransic. 1. 2.) Some sins are only remissible by the Pope; if a Priest remits them, his absolution is null. The penance of a Priest who betrays a confession directly or indirectly is very severe. He is deprived of his office for life, confined, and sometimes condemned by a secular judge, and fined heavily. The strictness with which this is observed abroad may be sometimes misapplied, but it is absolutely necessary to the system of their Churches. The canons of the Anglican Church also require it to be observed, and justly. There is one admirable law in France which we wish could be brought into operation here, viz. that physicians should advertise sick persons of their mortal danger, in order to give time for the succours of religion. Now-a-days medical men think it a charitable act to keep a patient in ignorance of his condition. It may be considerate, but it is, decidedly, not charitable.

On the subject of Indulgences, it is said, that Bishops have ever had power to remit a part of the penance they have assigned. The notion is founded on St. Paul's treatment of the incestuous person. Indulgences in the Romish Church are given, at the recommendations of martyrs, to those who, in times of persecution, have fallen into idolatry. In the eleventh century they were granted to those who, in any way, served the Church, especially to those who made war on infidels and heretics, or who supplied funds for such crusades. Since that time, they have been granted to less severe exertions, such as contributions for building churches. Penance varies in duration and degree with the crime; and indulgences are sometimes plenary :sometimes they last a year, or a Lent, or two years, or forty days. Modern times have much relaxed the ancient severity; still divine justice is satisfied, and what is forgiven on earth, is believed to be forgiven in heaven! The Lateran council limited indulgences to a year for the consecrating of a church, and to forty days for less virtuous acts. Abuses are provided against: still when alms are given, indulgences may be granted. Ah! the Jesuits! The dispensations for eating eggs in Lent, at this time, in Paris, bring in no less than 500,000 francs a-year to the coffers of the Church!

Jubilees take place every twenty-five years. Boniface VIII., finding it customary to grant indulgences to those who visited, at the beginning of each century, the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul, granted, in 1300, a plenary indulgence to all who should visit the tombs of the Apostles during thirty days, if they were Romans, and fifteen days if they were foreigners. This was to take place at the beginning of the century also. Clement VI. reduced the period to fifteen years:

he granted one in 1350. Paul II. made it twenty-five years; since Boniface IX., the Popes have granted a jubilee to those who visit Churches named by the Bishops in particular towns. Sixtus V. was the first who appointed a jubilee on the commencement of a pontificate his successors have followed his example.

Extreme Unction is founded on the passage in St. James, v. 14. The matter of the sacrament is oil blessed by the Bishop on Good Friday; the form, in the prayers offered whilst the Priest anoints the eyes, nose, ears, hands and feet of the sick. All Priests cannot administer it, nor can all persons receive it; for example, soldiers mounting to the assault of a town or battery, because they are not infirm. Therefore, though administered to a weak man who may recover, it is denied to a man who will, in all probability, be hurried into eternity with all his sins upon his soul; not because he is not a sinner, and may be penitent, but because he is not "sick."!! Extreme unction is only a supplement to penance.

Orders is a sacrament in the Latin Church. Its degrees are Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Subdeacons, Pastors, Readers, Exorcists and Acolytes. The ceremony of ordination is somewhat the same as with us; but to the Pastor, the keys of the church are given; to the Reader, the Gospel; to the Exorcist, books of exorcism, and power to lay hands on demoniacs; to the Acolyte, permission to handle the candles, vessels, &c. These latter are called minor orders, and are derived from tradition. The Church of England finds all her forms in the regulations for other offices. At fourteen years of age the tonsure is taken, by which (the clipping off of the hair by the Bishop) the person is dedicated to the church. But this does not make a Deacon. Qualifications are reading, writing, confirmation, and a knowledge of Latin. Age for the Subdeaconry, 18; Deaconry, 22; Priesthood, 25 years. There are certain jesuitical cases of irregularity in respect of candidates for orders which, to say the least of them, are singular. Thus a man who has been married before baptism and again after it, is irregular! An adulterer is not irregular, but the husband of an adulteress is! A Clerk who has had several concubines, either at one time or successively, before or since his admission amongst the Clergy, is not irregular! A Clerk in holy orders, who consummates a marriage, is considered guilty of bigamy, his first wife being the Church. But the Pope may give dispensations; and a man who marries a widow, with whom he does not cohabit, may be, in such a case, ordained. A man who cuts off his own finger or ear, is not fit to be ordained, because he is guilty of homicide; in this respect are regarded evvouxo. A one-eyed man is not irregular; but preference is to be given to a man who has his left eye perfect, because a man who has only his right eye cannot read the mass-book without an indecent turn of the head! If a man wants two fingers and half the palm of his hand, or the whole of his finger-nail, he cannot be ordained, because he cannot properly break the bread! Epilepsy after the age of puberty prohibits; and Pope Gelasius (Can. 7. 2.) defines epilepsy to be a falling on the earth with violence, with loud cries, and a foaming at the mouth. A Priest who kills another in a duel, or by a champion, is irregular! All are irregular who have

VOL. XII. NO. XI.

4 Y

professed heresy after ordination; who have been ordained by heretics; who have not been baptized in the "Catholic Church;" but in France the decrees of the Popes are not observed, so as to include " the children of heretics to the second generation." Simoniacal Priests are not irregular, because there are no canons on the point. The Pope has the sole power of dispensation in cases of homicide. The Bishop may dispense les bátards" for minor orders.

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The sacrament of Marriage understands two characters in the Priest: the civil and the spiritual. The Latin Church holds marriage to be a natural and civil contract, which Jesus Christ raised to the rank of a sacrament. There is much misunderstanding on this point we will explain the matter. It is deemed that, though marriage gives reciprocal right over the bodies of the married, marriage is a spiritual affair. Espousals are necessary; the age for them is that of reason; for marriage, that of puberty. These must be free and unconstrained, and may be dissolved by after infirmity, or irregular habits. Publication must be made by bans, which word, by the way, in the old language of the Franks and Lombards, signifies a public cry, or advertisement, or a convocation; sometimes a punishment; sometimes a place where justice is administered. Thus, we have in English, a ban of justice, viz. a curse; and in France, there is a district in Alsace called the " Ban de la Roche," near Strasbourg. The application to marriage is, therefore, obvious. The marriageact in France is something like that of England, being full of similar provisions for the prevention of clandestine unions. The Bishop sometimes dispenses with bans; but in the first volume of the Journal of the Palace, an act of the Paris parliament of the 22d Dec. 1672, declares a marriage between a servant and her master null, because the dispensation to marry quâlibet hora was gained just at the close of the man's life. The laws of France require six months' residence by the parties in the place of marriage; and twelve months if they marry out of their own diocese. The contracting parties are the ministers of the sacrament, of which the form is the promise made in the presence of the Curé of the parish, who must not give the nuptial benediction before having been certified, as to the civil contract, in the presence of the secular magistrate. With respect to Priests, the validity of the civil contract of marriage has been the subject of much controversy before the tribunals. Our readers will find acts for and against it in the "Gazette des Tribunaux" of 23d and 24th Feb., 2d and 14th March, 23d May and 6th June, 1828; and in the " Courier des Tribunaux" of 1st March and 11th June, 1828. On 18th May, 1818, the "Cour Royale" of Paris declared such marriages null; on the 9th Jan. 1821, they were declared legal. But the eighth canon of the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent declares them void, because the Priest is under a tacit vow to love his spouse the Church, and must therefore be guilty of bigamy! Such are the traditions of men! The table of kindred and affinity extends to ties of "illicit commerce" in the same way as parentage or brotherhood. God-fathers and god-mothers may not marry, because there is a spiritual union between them, and because the Gallican Church requires only one of each for each baptism. Marriages between "Catholics'

and "heretics" are not null. The Pope often dispenses in such cases to "Catholic" princesses and "heretic" princes. The French law, following the bull of Clement III., provides for a case which often puzzles ministers in England (and has puzzled ourselves amongst the number); it declares that no absence, however long, of either party, annuls a marriage. There must be a proof of death, by certificate of proper persons. We dare not enter upon the cases and provisions impuissance" of the parties, and other cases. The Latin Church prohibits marriages from Advent Sunday to the Epiphany, and from Ash-Wednesday to the first Sunday after Easter. The grounds for dissolution of marriage are so abominably particularized, and the power of the Church in enforcing, by public censures, certain conjugal duties, is so plainly stated, that we pass them over.

for "

We have entered into the various topics of the work before us thus minutely, because it has appeared to us to throw a light on many interesting points, and because there are various subjects enumerated illustrative of the true character of every Romish communion, however mitigated. Before we conclude, we wish to lay before our readers a few notes on other branches of inquiry into the mysteries of the Romish Church, equally curious, and equally illustrative.

We are taught, that a church may be polluted by the burial of an infidel, of a heretic, or of an excommunicated person denounced for the exercise of a false religion; by violent blood-shedding, or corporal defilement. Blood-shedding does not include bleeding at the nose! and a church is not defiled by any act of impurity done in secret! Such a church is purified by sprinkling with holy water, mixed with salt, wine, and ashes, and by reciting prayers to chase away the devil, and to obtain remission of sins. Burial grounds near to churches undergo the same ceremonies, with the addition of being robbed of the heretical carcase if it can be distinguished. Rousseau and Voltaire, however, yet lie in the vault under the church of St. Généviève in Paris! It is prohibited to walk about, make reports, represent plays,* hold assemblies, to speak of temporal affairs, or do justice, in churches. Divine service is only permitted in Latin. "Vagabond" Priests must not offer the sacrifice of the mass. The holy vessels, cloths, &c. are to be blessed by a Bishop. Bells are to be very solemnly blessed, with oil, holy chrism, incense, myrrh, and many prayers. Robes are made matters of individual care. It is very well known that a Bishop of Amiens, in 1669, once visiting the collegiate Church of Roye, excommunicated the Dean because he would not put off his stole in the presence of the Bishop. It was tried before the courts, and given against the Bishop.

The Worship of Saints is defended on the principle of ancient prescription; and it is allowed" to invoke them as intercessors before God, by the merits of Jesus Christ, who is alone our Saviour and Redeemer." The Pope, since the twelfth century, has had power to place new names in the lists of saints: when prayers are offered in a given spot or district, it is called a beatification; when this worship extends to the whole Church, a canonization. The Council of Trent

* We intend, before long, to shew how often such things have been represented in churches in France.