men, the sun would set before I told you one hundredth part of the enormity of this child of Moloch and Belial. Inebriated with the cup of insanity, and flung upon the stream of recklessness, she dashes down the cataract of nonsense, and whirls amid the pools of confusion. Like the Roman Emperor, she actually has declared herself immortal! she has declared her eternity! Again, I am obliged to say it, these are no words of mine; the tremendous sentiment confronts me in black and crimson characters in this diabolical book. In the law,' says Blackstone, 'the Sovereign is said never to die!' Again, with still more hideous expressiveness, 'The law ascribes to the Sovereign an ABSOLUTE IMMORTALITY!!' THE KING NEVER DIES.'

"And now, gentlemen, your destiny is in your own hands. If you are willing to succumb to a power which has never been contented with what she was, but has been for centuries extending her conquests in both hemispheres, then the humble individual who has addressed you will submit to the necessary consequence; will resume his military dress, and return to the Caucasus; but if, on the other hand, as I believe, you are resolved to resist unflinchingly this flood of satanical imposture and foul ambition, and force it back into the ocean; if, not from hatred of the English,—far from it, -from love to them (for a distinction must ever be drawn between the nation and its dominant Johnbullism); if,

I

say, from love to them as brothers, from a generous determination to fight their battles, from an intimate consciousness that they are in their secret hearts Russians, that they are champing the bit of their iron lot, and are longing for you as their deliverers; if from these

the

lofty notions, as well as from a burning patriotism, you will form the high resolve to annihilate this dishonour of humanity; if you loathe its sophisms, 'De minimis non curat lex,' and 'Malitia supplet ætatem,' and 'Tres faciunt collegium,' and 'Impotentia excusat legem,' and 'Possession is nine points of the law,' and 'The greater the truth, the greater the libel,'-principles which sap very foundations of morals; if you wage war to the knife with its blighting superstitions of primogeniture, gavelkind, mortmain, and contingent remainders; if you detest, abhor, and abjure the tortuous maxims and perfidious provisions of its habeas corpus, quare expedit, and qui tam (hear, hear); if you scorn the mummeries of its wigs, and bands, and coifs, and ermine (vehement cheering); if you trample and spit upon its accursed fee simple and fee tail, villanage, and free soccage, fiefs, heriots, seizins, feuds (a burst of cheers, the whole meeting in commotion); its shares, its premiums, its postobits, its percentages, its tariffs, its broad and narrow gauge."-Here the cheers became frantic, and drowned the speaker's voice, and a most extraordinary scene of enthusiasm followed. One half the meeting was seen embracing the other half; till, as if by the force of a sudden resolution, they all poured out of the square, and proceeded to break the windows of all the British residents. They then formed into procession, and directing their course to the great square before the Kremlin, they dragged through the mud, and then solemnly burnt, an effigy of John Bullism, which had been provided beforehand by the managing committee, a lion and unicorn, and a Queen Victoria: These being fully consumed, they dispersed quietly; and by ten o'clock at night the

streets were profoundly quiet, and the silver moon looked down in untroubled lustre on the city of the Czars.

Now, my Brothers of the Oratory, I protest to you my full conviction that I have not caricatured this parallel at all. Were I, indeed, skilled in legal matters, I could have made it far more natural, plausible, and complete; but, as for its extravagance, I say deliberately, and have means of knowing what I say, having once been a Protestant, and being now a Catholic,-knowing what is said and thought of Catholics, on the one hand, and, on the other, knowing what they really are,-I deliberately assert that no absurdities contained in the above sketch can equal, nay, that no conceivable absurdities can surpass, the absurdities which are firmly believed of Catholics by sensible, kind-hearted, well-intentioned Protestants. Such is the consequence of having looked at things all on one side, and shutting the eyes to the other.

LECTURE II.

TRADITION THE SUSTAINING POWER OF THE

PROTESTANT VIEW.

CONSIDERING, what is as undeniable a fact as that there is a country called France, or an ocean called the Atlantic, the actual extent, the renown, and the manifold influence of the Catholic religion, considering that it surpasses in territory and in population any other Christian communion, nay surpasses them all put together,―considering that it is the religion of two hundred millions of souls, that it is found in every quarter of the globe, that it penetrates into all classes of the social body, that it is received by entire nations, that it is so multiform in its institutions, and so exuberant in its developments, and so fresh in its resources, as any tolerable knowledge of it will be sure to bring home to our minds;-that it has been the creed of men the most profound and the most refined, and the source of works the most beneficial, the most arduous, and the most beautiful ;--and, moreover, considering that, thus ubiquitous, thus commanding, thus intellectual, thus ener

E