To forego such an important and instructive intention, involv ing it may be in the unseen future the safety of England's

state

"Big with the fate of Victoria and her throne-- "

we thought it our duty to here proffer our services as amanuensis, and communicate what we think are, or ought to be, the thoughts of an executioner of more than a hundred persons, himself now tottering to the grave.

This will be doing great honour to our hanging friend, and quite according to precedent; for that there were literary executioners we shall show, by quoting, in the course of these pages, the letter written by his brother executioner of France. But we do not wish to adopt the conclusions of our allies, when they found the same difficulties in hanging as Calcraft did in the case of Bousfield, by substituting the guillotine; rather we would The gallows set them the example of a system of punishment more befitting to be burnt, the Christianity and enlightenment of our country,-first, MAKING A BONFIRE OF THE GALLOWS, AND MINGLING ITS ASHES WITH THE RUINS OF NEWGATE; AND THEN, IN A BETTER CLASSIFIED GAOL, ADAPTED FOR INSTRUCTION, EMPLOYMENT AND PUNISHMENT, CON

and its

ashes mingled with the ruins of Newgate.

FINING FOR LIFE (DOOMED TO UNRECOMPENSED LABOUR) EVERY

ONE WHO TAKES THE LIFE OF A FELLOW-CREATURE.

In 1792, the gallows being found to inflict prolonged torture, by the common mode of hanging, Duport, the Minister of Justice, writes the following letter respecting the substitution of some mode of beheading.

(To be continued.)

The English

not al

ready," is in danger

Romanized.

HOW THE JESUITS ANGLE FOR OLD LADIES AND

WIDOWS.

THE sincerely Christian soul can but feel alarmed for the Church," future prospects of the English church when it reads of the daily perversions to Romanism of so many English ladies. of becoming Should the apostasies continue to multiply in the same ratio, it is easy to foretel that in less than a quarter of a century all the high church party will have trooped off to join the enemy. Let the sense of apprehension, however, give way to a calm and impartial consideration of facts. The first question the investigator will demand of his own mind will be something to

this effect: How can it be that so many perversions are constantly taking place among the best classes of English society? Or, in other words, the first thing of which the mind seeks an explanation is the cause, whether efficient or occasional, of this aristocratical apostasy from an Evangelical church to another based upon, inspired, and governed solely by man and human passions.

Example and familiar custom have great influence over the aristocratic classes, as all history proves. It was said with much truth of Bloomerism a few years ago, that if some duchess or marchioness had adopted it, the anti-artistic costume would have incontinently become an English fashion. That, therefore, which could not be effected at the time of the Bloomerist extravagance is really taking place now with regard to Papistic eccentricity. The great difficulty was to find a first duchess, Papistical eccentricity a first marchioness, a first countess; but when once one of of the aris these aristocratic ess's passed into the alphabet of Rome, it was tocracy. an easy matter for the professors of error to add new names to the fatal book of Babylon. The example of the duchess influenced the marchioness, that of the marchioness the countess, that of the countess the baroness and the lady, and so on in succession to the lowest grade of the family. Besides, in the meetings of high society the neophytes of the Romish Beast have every opportunity of sowing their venomous teeth. In saloons, in soirées, in drawing-rooms, and in social boudoir chat, like Deucalion of fabulous times, they watch for the teeth shed by themselves to produce an equal number of converts to the scarlet-robed abomination. No wonder, then, that the Catholic Standard of last week should have made the observation, that the Duchess of Argyle is the third Scotch duchess who has, in the course of a few months, passed over to Romanism. As duchess converts duchess, I shall not be at all astonished to find a few months hence that the number of duchess neophytes is at least a dozen.

Scotch

duchesses

are becom

ing fond of

Romanism.

Notwithstanding all the weight, however, of example and familiarity, still such things must be regarded only as the occasional cause of perversion, and the true and efficient cause has still to be discovered. To arrive the more surely at this Aristocracy the Papal fortunate Papal California, I shall employ as my magnetic California. needle the secret monitions of the Society of Jesus (Monita secreta Societatis Jesus), as it but too naturally happens that where aristocratic apostasy is in question there the insidious.

works of Jesuitism may be traced. It is especially to the aristocracy of birth and money that the Jesuits turn their attention and care, as the source whence they themselves derive the life of power and the soul of gold. In the above monitions I stumbled upon a separate chapter exclusively dedicated to fishing for old ladies and widows. Not that in entering upon this interesting and most suggestive chapter I wish to allude to the recent female converts to Romanism in England. Far be it from me! In the Free Word neither old ladies nor widows are specially mentioned, but only converts. The examination is, therefore, intended for the edification of my readers in general, for the instruction of Protestants at large; and if any lady convert finds in it her own likeness and personal illustration, so hand in the much the worse for her; I am certainly not to be blamed for it, but she herself, the Jesuits, the chapter of secret monitions, or, to Mormon if she prefers it, the devil, who always has a hand in such antievangelical perversions.

Satan accused of having a

conversion

of females

ism.

Jesuitism of
Loyola and

that of
Pusey one
and the

Holy bait of the Jesuits.

In speaking of Jesuits I do not confine myself to those of Rome, but comprehend also those of Oxford; the Jesuitism of Loyola and that of Pusey being one and the same thing. Both same thing. races belonging to the same family, act upon the same principles, are taught from the same book, instructed in the same school, and labour for the same end. What the Jesuits effect with Catholic old ladies and widows the Oxford Jesuits practise with respect to the old ladies and widows of Protestantism, and all for the greater glory of God (ad majorem Dei gloriam) and the exaltation of the holy Roman church and the blessed chair of the glorious Saint Peter. Indeed, it is by no means rare to find the original Jesuits themselves-that is, those of Romeabout the Protestant ladies, employed in entrapping them by means of the bacon and cheese of Jacob instead of the beans and lentils of Esau. I lay it down, then, as a practical fact, that England owes this aristocratic exodus from Protestantism to Romanism to the tender care of foreign and native Jesuits. The chapter of admonitions to which I particularly allude is devoted exclusively to teaching the various methods of courting and seducing aged ladies and widows in order to obtain the advantages derivable from their influence and their money. It must be premised that the courtship and seduction are directed primarily to their perversion, this being the immediate step to the devotion of their influence and money to the Court of Rome. Three principal methods of pleasing elderly ladies and widows

Jesuitical

method of seducing old ladies

and widows.

Mr. Garazzi acquainted desuits

destined to

are taught in this chapter: Conversation, Love, and Asceticism. First of all is conversation. It is well known that women, Old women passionparticularly the old, passionately love to chatter, and have the ately love stronger desire for conversation in proportion as they have to chatter. greater difficulty in finding any one to converse with them. It is equally well known that men in general prefer the society of young women, unless wit, vivacity, and mental culture cover the deficiency, and make up for the loss of youth. The Jesuits, therefore, dedicate a number of their men to the office of daily participants in the small talk of these venerable chatterboxes, who anticipate the holy visit with the anxiety with which the Jews watched for the manna in the desert. When I was in Italy, and especially in Naples and Turin, I was myself personally acquainted with some of these Jesuits destined to amuse old ladies by their conversation, and, upon my word of honour, ladies. I declare positively that they daily made their regular rounds according to the instructions they received from their superiors, punctually visiting the aged prattlers, and remaining with cach the precise time prescribed by the orders transmitted to them. It is easy to imagine the pleasure afforded by this attention to the poor abandoned old ladies, and how they a thousand times prefer the gentle murmuring tones of their holy visitors to all the eloquence of the parliamentary tribune or the bustle of the society in which formerly they were accustomed to move. It is well worth while, then, to be a Roman Catholic, if only to enjoy the incalculable advantage of a masculine visit, regularly paid at least once every day.

amuse old

danger of

young

For others, again, tlie impulse towards Romanism is given by love. For old maids who have not so much as a dog in Jesuits in the world to guard them, or any one to address a single being gentle word to them, and for widows of mature age (young trapped by widows in general are in the habit of entrapping rather than widows. being entrapped by the Jesuits) to whom a second marriage would neither be casy nor convenient, but who yet have not renounced the tender sentiment, for such to find in the Jesuits -cither of Rome or Oxford as the case may be-men who can adapt themselves to the thermometer of their affections when it stands only a few degrees below zero, is a temptation so pleasing that none of them pray not to be led into it. I trust that this observation will be taken without malice, and be understood in a purely mystical sense. The love of which I speak here is altogether spiritual, not even platonic-simply celestial. Unim

The most

inning

bat at

tached to

the jesuiti

cal hook, &c.

Certain ladies prefer to change their pa9ture.

portant presents of statuettes and small relics on one side are returned by bank-notes of hundreds and hundreds of pounds sterling on the other. Holy colloquies, holy glances, mutual holy aspirations; nothing profane, nothing terrestrial marks their intercourse. It is true that in my time, in Turin, and in Naples, those Jesuits who were the most famous as preachers and the handsomest men, were those destined for the othee of paying court to old ladies and widows; but that is no reason why their love should not be as spiritual as that of Francesco di Sales with Giovanni Chantal, or as that of Gregory VII. with the Countess Matilda. The object of the Jesuits being alone to withdraw these ladies from the love of the world and of the creature, it cannot be necessary to say that the love for themselves which they would substitute is altogether mystical, spiritual, and heavenly, though it does not cease to be love. Thus Pope Gregory could write of these old ladies and widows visited and courted by the Jesuits his celebrated epiphonema for Benedetto e Scolastica Vicaria.

The principal attraction, the most winning bait attached to the jesuitical hook used in angling for elderly dames and widows, whether Protestant or Catholic, is asceticism. It is of two kinds that of penitents, and that of the innocent ladies who in their youth abandoned themselves to gaiety, to gallantry, to coquetry, to dissipation, and to love, on arriving at old age take a disgust to the world because it has abandoned them. They then begin to think of a tardy retreat, but it is a rare case that this is effected in the secrecy of their own houses, or in the humility of a contrite heart. They seek for éclat even in their conversions; they wish society to talk about them just once more. The spring of feminine vanity is cleverly touched by the Jesuits, and this passion, finding an opportunity of gratifying itself under holy pretexts, is slow to let it escape its grasp. have seen that when the dissipation has taken place during the time that the lady was nominally Protestant, she seldom or never seeks atonement in Protestantism. She prefers to change her pasture, not so much from a desire of experiencing new sensations, as from the certainty of effecting her regeneration in the bosom of Romanism, thanks to sacramental absolution obtained without difficulty from the father confessor. This to a great degree explains the asceticism of the Puseyites. It is composed of pure mysticism, of unmixed spiritualism. It is nothing but devotion and aspirations, and worship of the most divine stamp.

I