Dominicans) are, for the most part, at present without the slightest information, and have scarcely more than a trifling knowledge of Grammar from some old cleric. Latin is almost wholly unknown to them, as I have been forced to find, whenever I called them to examination."

It appeared, that they had not Latin enough to translate the Canons of the Council of Trent, nor the Roman Catechism, nor the historical books of the Vulgate. They acknowledged that even the most advanced among them learned nothing of what they were to teach, till they found themselves actually nominated Doctors of Divinity, and Professors. The others, who exhibited no promise of being good for any thing in those matters, were designed to fill the appointments of confessors and preachers, particularly in the country; where it is known in what request they are among the multitude of parish festivals *. The Bishop, as ignorant of his interest as the monks were of their Bibles, had the unspeakable rashness to attempt some change in this hereditary brutism. He put a regular theological course into. the hands of the professors, and desired them to lecture from it. This drew down an universal storm of indignation, from which even his friend Leopold could give him no shelter. An attempt to limit the number of priests to those for whom real employment was to be found, encreased the storm, for Tuscany was like all Popish countries, covered with a rabble of monks and friars soliciting bread as confessors through every town and village, and occasionally used as assistants to the parish priests in the higher festivals. Ricci openly charges the monks with those superfluous ordinations as a matter of moneymaking:

"The traffic made of the fearful ministry of the altar," says he, "seems the only cause for the generality of these ordinations, I shrink with horror, when I remember many of the superiors of those monks violently insisting on having those preachers and confessors, and this solely for the sake of the revenue which they would bring back to the convent +."

It must be almost needless to say that this man was marked out for ruin. His financial arrangements were repelled with equal indignation; they "let loose against him all the avarice of the regulars and seculars; he was exposed to all the insults of the superstitious, and to all "the fury of the court of Rome!" Such is popery at home, and such will popery be abroad, wherever it shall find a negligent people and a confiding Legislature!

* Che mostravano minor talente e capacite, passavano subito all' uffizio di confessari e di predicatori.

Il traffico che si fa del tremendo ministerio.

The Tuscan churches were, like all the others of popery, crowded with altars for the obvious purpose of performing as many services at the same time as possible; a practice which Ricci justly pronounced to be "most grossly foisted on the original worship, and maintained by the ignorance, irreligion and avarice of the priests**

The reduction of the altars to one had been previously recommended even as a matter of architectural beauty and convenience. Ricci led Leopold into a church in which he had accomplished this change; and the Grand Duke expressed high satisfaction:

"How long have I been anxious," he exclaimed, "to see this? What is the use of so many altars under one roof? To enable the priests to make quicker work. Scandalous! They make a heap of altars; they must have a heap of masses; those masses must have a crowd of priests; those again must have altars. In running round this vicious circle, they perpetuate the shame and scandal, and well show their base conception (cattiva idea) of the ceremony."

Some of those churches contained monuments and inscriptions conceived in the very darkness of superstition. In the convent of the Servites at Pistoia, the following inscription was engraved in marble over the confessional, and beside the altar of the assumption:

"Gregory the XIIIth sovereign pontiff, moved with compassion for the souls of the faithful remaining in the torments of Purgatory! has granted, for ever, to every priest who shall celebrate the Holy Mass at the altar of the Assumption, the right of delivering from the pains of Purgatory, by the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed Virgin, of St. Peter and St. Paul, and all the Saints, the soul of any Christian whatsoever, dead in the grace of God, for which the aforesaid mass shall be celebrated in conformity to the papal Bull sealed with lead, of date, April 1580.-M. Alex. Pistoia, P. F. C. MDCVIII. The faithful who desire the Mass to be said at this altar, must pay for each time three lire." (two francs and a half.)

The holy finance is the purpose of those mercies of the "sovereign pontiff" in all times and places.

We give one more inscription, from the Annunziata in Florence.

"In perpetual memory

"Gregory the xiiith, Sovereign Pontiff, moved with compassion for

* Mantenute dalla ignoranza, dalla irreligiosita e dall' interesse dei ministri del sanctuario.

the Christian souls in the torments of purgatory, and desiring that, by Divine Mercy, they may be delivered therefrom, to taste the pleasures of their heavenly country, grants for ever, by grace, to any priest who shall celebrate mass at the altar of the holy crucifix, the right to deliver, each time, a soul from purgatory, to wit, that for which the aforesaid mass has been celebrated, as well as the right to enjoy all indulgences and remissions of sins obtained by those priests who celebrate the mass for the dead at the altar of St. Gregory at Rome, according to the brief of his Holiness. Dated Rome, 1576."

Connected with those gross and impious fooleries is the absolution for living offences, of which certain cases are reserved for the higher orders of the priesthood. Of those cases," books" are published, filled with descriptions conceived in the lowest depth of turpitude. One of those too, and the most glaring, bears the name of a no less memorable personage than Cardinal York, the last of that popish dynasty, whom English patriotism and piety, under the blessing of God, so manfully routed out of the land, with all their abominations. In this "Appendix ad Tusculanam Synodum a celsitudine_regia eminentissima Henrici Episcopi Tusculani Cardinalis Ducis Eboracensis," Rome, A.D. 1764," lists are given of crimes, which seem almost below the darkest depravity of human vice; or which none but the imagination of a monk could conceive, and the court of Rome publish. It is not to be forgotten, that the impure priest who compiled, or authorized this book, was, until the day of his death, the actual director of the whole popish patronage of Ireland!

In an age which has seen the charlatanry of Prince Hohenlohe received as the very power of heaven, all further proof of the chicanery or folly of the popish priesthood must be superfluous; yet we cannot resist the flagrant absurdity of a famous Italian miracle, which so late as the French conquest, set all ranks in a blaze of devotion. The story was published by a zealous believer, the Abbe Albertini, Professor of Eloquence at Fermo. This was the winking of the eyes, the professor calls them the most amorous eyes, ("amorosissime occhi,”) of the canvas Madonna, or Virgin Mary, of Ancona.

Matters had gone on untowardly with the French in the early part of 1796. The Austrians were forcing them back over the ground which they had gained with such facility. The time seemed to have come, when a rising of the peasantry might be attended with good effects on the retiring columns of the invader; and a miracle, the habitual resource of his "Holiness," was determined upon for the operation. A report was suddenly spread that the Madonna had been distinctly seen to

open and shut her eyes on the 25th of June, 1796; the moment. when the French affairs appeared to be in their most desperate condition. The whole population of Ancona immediately ran to see the miracle; the Cardinal Bishop Ranuzzi ran among the first, and all was rapture, penitence, and devotion.

"The angels," says Albertini," which in the height of the empyrean profoundly venerate their eminent Sovereign; those angels, to whom it is not allowed to behold her face, Anconitans, almost envy your good fortune."

"It was Jesus Christ," continues the Abbe, "who first conceived the idea of this miracle. He thus addressed his mother. Go, O Reconciler and Mediator between God and man, whom thou hast vanquished! I have placed in thee the seat of my power. It is by thy intervention that I bestow mercy. As thou hast given me the essence of man, so give I to thee the essence of God! my omnipotence, by which thou canst save from punishment all who recommend themselves to thee."

This is blasphemy, if ever blasphemy was uttered; but it is the habitual language of Rome.

The Madonna was now placed in a magnificent chapel of the cathedral of St. Cyriaque, at Ancona. The regular steps were taken to make the miracle work its purpose. Formal documents were prepared; a narrative was published on the spot, by "order of his eminence the Cardinal Bishop;" a marble memorial of the transaction was placed within the cathedral, and the miracle seen and sworn to by "not less than eighty thousand spectators." The Pope too was not idle. He instantly issued his Brief for a pious "brotherhood," to be called the "Sons and Daughters of Mary." The miracle had an enormous run," and for a dozen days and nights it was impossible to close the doors from the multitude, who poured in full of worship and wonder. But, to prevent the novelty from wearing off; after the first popular fortnight some scepticism as to the reality of the miracle was insinuated. To suffer the matter to rest in doubt was intolerable. Accordingly, a Committee was formed consisting of three artists, my lord the VicarGeneral, some of the canons, and an anxious crowd of nobles and others of the faithful. The artists approached to examine the picture; whether there had been any deception, by change of colours, and so forth; but the Virgin stood her trial boldly. No sooner was the glass taken out of her frame, than she opened her eyes twice, and even wider than she had ever done before; and finally, as full proof, firmly closed them. In short the Madonna behaved to admiration, and scepticism. was no

more.'

Yet nothing could be more ungenerous than this doubt, for, as the abbe observes, "the Madonna had given most abundant proof before, having, on the morning of the 26th of June, the very day after the discovery, in solemn procession, done nothing but shut and open her eyes, and turn them in all directions, to the boundless joy of the multitude, who could not help bursting into tears." It is true, that in two subsequent processions, she did not give herself the trouble of looking at all. She had seen enough on her first visit to the streets of Ancona.

Pius the VIIth crowned this miraculous picture on the 13th of May, 1814! He did more, he fixed an annual holyday, the second SUNDAY of the same month, for the idol! He annexed to it a plenary indulgence, even the power of remitting sins! Fearful profanation! Well was it prophesied of the Man of Sin, that he should "think to change times and days;" that "his coming should be after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders;" that " as God, he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing that he is God;"" the son of perdition!" whom "the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming!"

But a memorable personage now appeared on the scene, as much an actor as any Pope from Gregory downwards; but on the present occasion disposed to exhibit a good deal of his natural character. This was Bonaparte. Italian insurrections were not to be generated with impunity while he was on the other side; and he accordingly, after having put the Austrians to flight, marched down to investigate the progress of the miracle at Ancona. The conquering Jacobin did not condescend to visit the Virgin, but ordered her to wait on him. Orders issued at the head of French battalions and squadrons, were not to be questioned; and the sacred guardians of the saint brought her without delay to the palazzo Trionfi, where Napoleon had taken up his abode. She came covered with jewels and ornaments, the offerings of the faithful; Napoleon contemptuously ordered that they should be all stripped off instantly, and sent to the poorest hospital of the city. This formidable decree was on the point of taking place, when one of the French agents, Bonavia, suggested to the grand Spoiler the possible inconveniences of the measure, as a hundred thousand of the peasantry were fully persuaded of the miracle, and were of course likely to be extremely irritable on the plunder. His hearer well knew the ways of men, and was too sagacious not to see even in this path his way to popularity. He suddenly seemed struck with the prodigy; took up the picture, and fixed his eyes upon it for a long time, as in profound meditation. "We cannot positively affirm," says