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non recedat sæpe quotidie? Certe vix umbram quamdam retinemus in nostris ecclesiis ejus doctrinæ et disciplinæ quæ Apostolorum temporibus fluerunt, et prorsus aliam accersivimus.

This, however, bad as it is, is mild in comparison with some other of their observations.

.. Lastly (and we have reserved this advice for the last place, because it is the most important of all which, under present circumstances, we are able to give to your Holiness), you must take care and endeavour by all means in your power to cause that as small a portion as possible of the Gospel (especially in the vulgar tongue) be read in countries submitted to your government, and which acknowledge your power. That the little which is read at mass should suffice, and that no person be allowed to read more. As long as men have been contented with this small portion of the Scripture, so long your affairs have prospered, and your maxims prevailed; your temporal and spiritual authority have, on the contrary, declined, from the moment when the people have usurped the right of reading more of it. 'Tis this book, after all, more than any other, which has excited against us those troubles and those storms which have driven us to the brink of the abyss. And it must be allowed, that, if any one examine with attention, and compare afterwards in detail that which it contains with the practices of our church, he will find very great differences, and will see not only that our doctrine is altogether different from that which the Scripture teaches, but that oftentimes it is entirely opposed to it. Now, from the instant that the people, excited by one of our learned adversaries, shall have acquired this knowledge, the clamours against us will not cease, until all shall have been divulged to the public, and we shall have been rendered objects of universal hate. This is the reason why we should withdraw these writings from the notice of the people; but with prudence and circumspection, lest this measure should excite against us greater disturbances and tumults. (Quare auferendæ pauculæ illæ chartæ erunt, sed adhibitâ quâdam cautione et diligentiâ, ne ea res majores nobis turbas ac tumultus excitet).

The advice goes on to point out the Archbishop of Benevento, the legate of the Pope at Venice, D. Joh. della Crusca, as a fit person to carry these measures into effect; because without openly condemning the Gospel, he had contrived to insert it in a catalogue of forbidden works.

The astonishment which this may excite is relieved when we recollect that similar language was actually used, and similar measures adopted, so recently as 1824, by Pope Leo XII., whose successor received the tiara on the day that the Parliament of once Protestant England signed the death-warrant of the Constitution. The passages here given we take from the 'Lettre Encyclique,' published at Paris, in Latin and French, on occasion of the jubilee of 1825, by Adrian Le Clerc, printer to the Pope and the Archbishop of Paris.

You are not ignorant, my brethren, that a society, commonly called the Bible Society, is spreading itself most audaciously over all the earth; and that in spite of the traditions of the holy fathers, and against the celebrated decree of the Council of Trent, it endeavours by all means, and with all its powers, to corrupt the Holy Gospels in the vulgar tongues of all the nations of the earth; which gives us just cause of fear, that that will happen in all other translations which has happened in those which are known, viz. that people will find, through a bad interpretation, instead of the Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of man, or what is worse, the GOSPEL OF THE DEVIL!!!

Strenuous as our endeavours have been to point out what we conceive to be errors of the Bible Society in the way of translation, we cannot suffer such a scandalous passage as this to go forth without the most severe reprobation.

If any one, (adds Pope Leo,) seeks the true source of all the evils we have enumerated, he will convince himself that it was always thus; and that it is the obstinate contempt of the authority of the church-of that church which acknowledges Peter in the apostolic chair, and sees and honours, in THE PERSON OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF, him, in whom ever dwells the anxiety of all the pastors, and the care of souls which are committed to him; him whose dignity is not weakened even in an unworthy heir. . . . &c.

We may say of the entire Romish Church what the Bishops of Bologna said, in the sixteenth century, of Spain in particular, "NIHIL INNOVAT, NIHIL MUTAT." And we defy the legal quirks of a Jesuitical barrister, or the apostacising officiousness of a ministerial convert, to deny, or, what is more difficult, to disprove, the testimony which the Church of Rome has given against herself.

We have now not time sufficient to examine the Concilium more minutely; but we shall close our remarks by stating that ample provision is made in it for the sale of indulgences, and the necessity enforced of naming only ignorant persons, and such as are devoted to the Church of Rome, for bishops ("rudes ac literarum ignari, et ceterarum rerum curæ peritissimi, ut familiæ tuæ studiosissimi sint"); of keeping Lutherans away from the councils, and of considering certain observations relative to the religious community in Germany. We repeat, that if the signatures which we shall now quote did not contradict the assumption, we should conclude that this was the production of some enemy in disguise, and a bitter and cutting satire on the Romish hierarchy. But the experience of all ages since the domination of Rome over Christianity, amply attests the truth of the statements made therein. The date of this precious article is "Bononiæ, 20 Octob. 1553:" the subscription of the three episcopal counsellors as follows:

VINCENTIUS DE DURANTIBUS, Episc. Thermularum Brixiensis;
EGIDIUS FALCETA, Episc. Caprulanus; et

Gerhardus BuSDRAGUS, Episc. Thessalonicensis.

One of the Right Rev. Members of the House of Lords, in 'the late sham-fight' in honour of the Prince of Waterloo, expressed a hope that the measure which has disgraced our country might excite the guardians of Protestantism to a stricter vigilance in this time of desertion and double-dealing. If our readers receive this paper as a proof that we are willing to do our duty to the utmost, they will afford us the only satisfaction we seek in putting into their power one of the most extraordinary weapons ever employed against the bewitching wiles of the seven-hilled pontiff.

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ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURAL FACTS AND CUSTOMS,

By analogous Reference to the Practice of other Nations.

CATTLE ASCENDING FROM THE RIVERS.

Gen. xli. 1, 2.—" Behold, he stood by the river; and, behold, there came up out of the river seven well-favoured kine, and fat fleshed; and they fed in a meadow."

At Molubis, on the east bank of the Nile, I observed a cattle fair. Several buffaloes were swimming from the opposite side, across the water. Their unwieldy body sinks deep into the water, so that only a part of the neck is level with the surface; while their uplifted head just raises the snorting nostrils above the water. Often a little Arab boy takes his passage across the Nile upon the back of this animal; setting his feet on the shoulders, holding fast by the horns, and thus keeping his balance. As the buffaloes rose out of the water on the bank, I was struck with their large bony size, compared with the little that had appeared of them while in the water. Their emerging brought to mind the above passage in Genesis. It was the very scene, and the very country.— Jowett's Researches, 166.

LEAVING GARMENT-PROOF OF GUILT.

Gen. xxxix. 12.-" And he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out."

In Abyssinia it is always the custom to secure an offender by tying his garments to those of another person; and, according to the established rule of the country, it is always considered as a sure proof of guilt, which requires no further evidence to be adduced, if a man, when once laid hold of, runs away, and leaves his garment behind. The apparent coincidence between the customs may be offered as a justification for Potiphar, who, on such proof exhibited by his wife, at once decided upon his (Joseph's) guilt, and committed him to prison.-Salt's Journey, p. 410.

EPITAPH.

INSCRIPTION PROPOSED FOR A MONUMENT TO THE REV. H

R-CHURCH, HANTS.

D——, IN

"Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child,

he shall not enter therein."-Mark x. 15.

FROM murmur free, as void of fears,

His victim death beguil'd;

In form, a man of many years,
In gentleness, a child.

Nor vainly read, thou mate of mirth,

Nor lightly pass his sod,

But with the poor, the meek on earth,
Prepare to meet thy God.

Still heedful, lest thy fleshly part,
To second childhood grown,

Outstrip that childhood of the heart,
Which heaven declares its own.

P. H.

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SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.
Report of the Liverpool District Committee, for the Year 1829.

THE Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has, from its first establishment in the year 1699, been progressively extensive in its endeavours to diffuse the blessings of Christianity among the lower orders of the community; until, at length, it has, under the Divine blessing, so far succeeded in the prosecution of its benevolent designs, that its salutary influence has been felt and acknowledged, not only throughout every part of the United Kingdom, but, in consequence of the aid it has given to Foreign Missions, nearly throughout the whole habitable world.

It is with peculiar satisfaction, therefore, that the Liverpool District Committee refer their friends and the public to the Report of the Society for the year ending in April 1829. In that year the expenditure, it appears, has amounted to 72,2127. 4s. 9d., which considerably exceeds that of the preceding year. But, at the same time, it is of importance to know, "that the statement put forth last year by the Society has, in a great measure, answered its intended purpose, the subscriptions received in the year ending at the audit for 1829, having exceeded those received at the

previous audit by upwards of a thousand pounds, and the benefactions and donations from Committees have also been increased during the same period by about the same amount.' To this augmentation the Liverpool District Committee have the satisfaction to state, that, by the unanimous vote of its members, the sum of Two Hundred Pounds was contributed, in consideration of the loss of 2881. 9s. 6d. which had been sustained by the Society, on the books which were supplied to the Liverpool District Committee during the foregoing year.

In the following detail of their proceedings, during the past year, the Liverpool District Committee anxious to shew that they have not

are

relaxed in their exertions to carry into effect the benevolent designs of the Society, and thus to fulfil their duty to the public. And they gladly embrace the opportunity again afforded them, of expressing their obligations to the Board in London, for the kind and ready attention which has, at all times, been paid to their applications for the Society's publications, by which they have been enabled so promptly to answer the numerous demands hitherto made upon the Depository. The extent to which these demands have already risen, will be seen in the subjoined account of the number of books which have been dispersed by the Committee since its first formation in the year 1816.

Summary Account of Books, &c. issued from the Liverpool Depository.

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From the foregoing Summary, it will appear that the Committee, since the establishment of their Depository in May 1816, have distributed no less than four hundred and thirty-two thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven of the Society's books, tracts, and papers.

A decrease in the number of the minor tracts of the Society issued from the Depository during the preceding year, having occurred, the Committee deem it proper to observe, that this circumstance is to be attributed to the extraordinary supplies of the elementary tracts which had been previously called for, and furnished by the Committee to several new establishments within the district, parti

cularly to the two great National Schools which have been recently erected, and are now supported by the munificence of the corporation. But, notwithstanding this deficiency in regard to number, the Committee have the satisfaction to state, that there has been an excess of 260 in the number of Bibles beyond the issue of the former year, and that the demand for Prayer-Books has hitherto undergone little or no abatement.

The religious education of the infant poor has, from the very commencement of its operations in the year 1699, occupied a principal share of the Society's attention. The District Committee, therefore, feel great

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