ladies press to their bosoms consecrated idols. What is the Bible to the "Exercises" of Saint Ignatius? What is the Gospel to the "Imitation of Christ" of a-Kempis? What is the New Testament to the works of Alphonso Liguori? What is the Word of God altogether compared to the "Garden of the Soul" of Dr. Pusey? Mere shadows, or nothing at all. Just Childless imagine these elderly and widowed ladies in company with their Madonnas and Bambinos addressing their prayers and ejaculations to these holy puppets, pressing them to their bosoms, papistical fervently kissing them, thinking that they hear, understand, and answer them! Oh! should the whole world abandon them, the Madonnas and Bambinos will never forsake them. If the Madonnas and Bambinos are with them and for them, what diabolical force can prevail against them? How easily may a heart unfilled with the Divine Word be filled by artificial devotion, with the transparent and sensual asceticism of Rome! If my readers will keep these three causes in mind, they will not in future wonder at English ladies who pass from Protestantism to the Church of Rome. If the perverts be old or widows they may be sure that in ninety-eight cases out of one hundred the perversion was caused by one of these motives, and sometimes by all three at the same time. I repeat that in this The Jesuits matter the Jesuits of Oxford are not second to those of Rome, not only because they have the same doctrine and the same practices, but more especially because they have the same aim in view in the proselytism of old ladies and widows-that of making use of their influence and money for their own advantage. of Oxford are not second to those of Rome. That the true and real aim of these infamous Jesuits is the Jesuits hunt out money rather than any care for the souls and eternal salvation moried of these ladies, two facts, selected from among a hundred of ladies. which I have a personal knowledge, will suffice to persuade any reasonable being. These ladies, victims of their own vanity or folly, believe themselves directly the objects of the tender solicitude of these cunning Jesuits when they are in reality just as much valued by them as the slippers of Mahomet, the specific weight of their attractions being precisely that of the gold of which they can dispose. When I was in Naples, previously to 1831, there was a very rich widow, who among other possessions owned a delightful villa in the charming spot called l'Arenella. The Jesuits did not fail to hunt her out. They paid regular, assiduous, and affectionate court to her until she was at length induced to allow them a life annuity of all her estates, the villa meluded. No sooner was the annuity settled than she was regularly abandoned by her Jes ut courtiers. Thousands could The General Jesuits and testify to the infamous manner in which she was afterwards treated by them, and to her complaints against these wicked deceivers who robbed her of her property. The other fact relates to a case which occurred when I was at Turin before 1848. The Queen Christina of Bourbon, widow of Charles Felix, had as her own confessor the celebrated Jesuit Father Grassi. The Company left him to her until she had made her will, by which she bequeathed to the Jesuits one of the finest villas in the neighbourhood of Rome. Having obtained their prey, the General of the Society requested the old and childish widow to restore Father Grassi to the Catholic world, and he was taken from her only because she had not a second villa to dispose of in favour of the Jesuits. England may then look for something more than the mere conversion of her highest dames to Romanism. She may expect to see these ladies throw to the Roman wolf their jewels, their incomes, and the capital of their property. The sacred thirst of gold of Papacy and Jesuitism is matter of history, and nothing The Jesuits in the world can satisfy it. Considering, therefore, the rank and numbers of ladies who have been fished for by the Jesuits in the waters of Protestantism, it must be allowed that taken as a whole, the Jesuits are the most clever and successful anglers in existence, particularly with regard to the genus tortoise of old maids and elderly widows.-Gavazzi's Free Word, 15th March, 1856. may be taken as a whole the most clever and successful anglers in existence. A jesuitical dodge to raise the wind. HOSPITALS FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF NURSES THE NIGHTINGALE FUND. THE signal services rendered by Miss Nightingale, to the sick and wounded of the British forces in the East, have excited throughout the country a universal desire to testify, by some marked and substantial acknowledgment, the gratitude and admiration of the British people. But Miss Nightingale has nobly refused to accept any testimonial from which she could derive personal advantage of any description; while it is ascertained that the tribute most in harmony with her feelings and wishes, would be to afford further scope for her disinterested exertions, by placing under her immediate superintendence the establishment of an institution for the reception, protection, and training of hospital Mercy nurses and assistants, whereby the inestimable blessings of the Sisters of system she has introduced may be perpetuated and extended undertake generally. to instruct women to nurses for such as Such institutions will no doubt be connected with one of the become existing leading hospitals of the metropolis; and such properly babies, &c. ! trained nurses will be available for all the hospitals through Institutions Great Britain, or for private families. To this fund, therefore, all classes are invited to contribute, first, as a testimonial for national gratitude to Miss Nightingale, and, next as a means by which her sphere of usefulness may be greatly enlarged. Subscriptions will be received by the bankers in this town; or communications may be addressed to the honorary secretaries, at the Office, 5, Parliament Street. convents to be raised testant subscriptions! with Pro THE UNHOLY INQUISITION OF THE INSOLVENCY COURT. IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT To the Editor of the Morning Advertiser. SIR,-Feeling the cruelty of the present unjust law at heart, I have penned the following few lines, which I hope, through your continued kindness, may find a small space in the columns of the Morning Advertiser as representing the feelings of numbers of poor imprisoned debtors : :- THE SOLILOQUY. Where fore am I here? I have done no wroug, Nor have I willingly the law outragol. From wife I'm torn, from little children dear, Aud in these lonesome walls am here immured! Too much, alas, to suffer poverty-- Too much to see my little ones in wan- in this the land of boa, ted English rule ? It is not frue; for wrong, what have I done? F. A. L.. Soliloquy in a Bastile. The House of Com mors alle 1 with crea COMPOSITION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ALL know what this assembly ought to be,-the bold champion of the people's rights, and the faithful guardian of the national purse; none are ignorant of what it is,-a body filled with creatures of the aristocracy, patronage scekers, and reckless and vatron squanderers of the nation's money. ores of the aristocrac age seekers, de A once distinguished states:nan, who has recently committed political suicide, and is now "fallen into the sere and yellow leaf," but who is most thoroughly familiar with the House of Commons in all its workings, has given the following description of it : "The number of placemen in the House of Commons, although too great, is not sufficient to make an undue influence preponderate. It is the expenditure in our civil and military establishments, in the collection of our taxes, in the increase in the number of our colonies, the doubling and tripling of the salaries, the compensations and superannuations which are allowed so frePatronage quently for the purposes of patronage, the immense extent of our accounts, the organized adaptation of all offices and salaries to conciliate Members of Parliament,-it is all these things that Parliament. have increased, and are increasing, what Blackstone calls the persuasive influence of the Crown, which may undermine our liberties, if they are not met with a new and determined spirit in the people, neither to be cajoled by specious falschood, nor fatigued by repeated evasion.” more lucrative than salary to members of Load Jonu Essiv on of the English Go- Thus wrote Lord John Russell, in his Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution, published some thirty the History years ago. It was said of an unreformed Parliament, but it is as true now as it was then; for, in not one of the points enumerated as fraught with danger to the liberties of the people, does the present House of Commons exhibit any improvement as compared with its predecessors. The object of the Reform Bill was to remedy the abuses denounced by its author, in the foregoing extract; and it was, doubtless, because the Duke of Wellington thought it likely to be effective for its purpose, that he declared he could not see how, if it were to become law, the King's Government was to be carried on. His Grace lived to see the groundlessness of his fears, and to learn that, through the defects of the measure itself, and by judicious management, the King's Government could be carried on very much in the Sheil's ac Commons. old fashion. Another most competent judge has said of this Richard L. same body in its reformed condition,-"The House of Commons is more intensely susceptible to aristocratic prejudices than any tion of the assembly in the civilized world. Good taste prevents, in general, House of the open manifestation of these prejudices in a way noticeable by the gallery, or that the public out of doors can ever be made thoroughly to understand. You cannot by any description make a West Indian comprehend the sensation of frost until he has endured it; the sensation for him exists not, nor can he sympathize with those who feel its painful and benumbing influence, But the reality is there nevertheless, and to this cause, more than to any mere spirit of clique or nepotism, is to be ascribed the unfair preference usually shown in the formation of every cabinet, and in the distribution of the higher offices generally. The Whigs are blamed for yielding to this insolent and exclusive The middle spirit; but they will never be cured by any amount of blame which may be cast upon them, while the House of Commons equality in remains what it is. When its composition shall be changed, and the middle classes shall attain a practical equality in Parliament, then they will gain a fair share of administrative power, but not till then."-Memoirs of the Right Hon. Richard Lalor Sheil. By W. Torrens McCullagh. Colburn, 1855. classes shall attain an Parliament. All who have any personal acquaintance with the House of Commons, must acknowledge the perfect accuracy of this description of it; and, considering its constitutional parts, none can wonder that it should be so thoroughly leavened with the aristocratic spirit as Mr. Sheil said it was. A reference to Dod's Parliamentary Companion will show that at the commencement of last year it contained, besides eight Irish peers, Usurpers of 165 sons, grandsons, and sons-in-law of peers, and twenty-five of Comother persons related to peers by blood or marriage, making a mons. total of 198 individuals directly connected with the peerage. We are far from saying that relatives of peers should be altogether excluded from the House of Commons, or even that a fair sprinkling of them, of good abilities and advocating constitutional principles, amongst the popular representatives, may not be advantageous; but we do think that whilst the clectors send them there in such numbers as to form almost a third of the whole assembly, the people cannot reasonably complain of the decidedly aristocratic tendencies of their own branch of the Legislature; and, furthermore, that if the object be, as is sometimes alleged, to provide a sort of apprenticeship to the business the House |