the present Catholic Church, as it is now in the world, has become a corrupt and perverse body, that it has tampered with and added to the articles of the original christian creed. Do they not see that it is a much more easy thing to falsify the letters of a manuscript, than to change the traditional belief spread over many different nations? If, therefore, vice and wickedness has so obtained the upper hand in the Catholic Church, as to bring to pass a falsification of the traditional faith current among her members, how will you make it sufficiently plain to satisfy the reason that the same vice and wickedness did not succeed in falsifying the Scriptures during the centuries in which the Catholic Church was their exclusive keeper? The motive in either case is equally powerful, and the task in the latter much more easily executed. But, on the supposition that God intended the propagation of the revelation He gave, by the means of a Bible and its circulation, yet, at least, the Bible of the nineteenth century cannot, on the principle of its advocates, be an instrument conformable to the attributes of God, because they have no means of solving the rational doubt as to its identity with the original Bible. But it is impossible that God would make a mock of the human reason by the tender of a doubtful and unauthenticated Bible, such as without the testimony of the living Church the present Bible must be. II. In the Bible is found the declared will of God, that all men should come to a knowledge of the truth, and be saved. If, then, the general distribution of the Bible be the means which God has framed in order to effect his purpose, it will follow that it must be a book easily obtainable, and when obtained, easily intelligible to all. But, before the invention of printing, the Bible was not in any moderate degree generally accessible; and if it had been, the greater part of mankind are unable to read; and if they were able to read, they are unacquainted with the languages in which the Scriptures are written. But an instrument supposed to be designed for the universal propagation of a divine revelation to all mankind, which yet is such as that by far the greater part of mankind can make no use whatever of it, cannot come from the wisdom of God. III. If the indiscriminate study of the Scriptures were of God's appointment, it would be calculated to produce uniform and concordant conclusions with respect to the doctrines that constitute the main body of the revelation; for all God's works tend with certitude to the end for which they were designed. But such are not the fruits of the general reading of the Bible, for it gives birth both to the Calvinist and Arminian systems, which contradict each other. The man who affirms the Son of God to be a creature, created in time, is a reader of the Scriptures equally with him who confesses Him to be the Son of God begotten from all eternity. Moreover, it should be observed, that whoever accepts the Bible as the word of God, notwithstanding the doubts to which it is exposed on the principle of the advocates of its distribution, and gleans from it any doctrines, or supposed doctrines, is thrown into the anomalous position of believing himself—that is, of trusting himself in the process whereby he extracts and appropriates what he there finds. Whether this can with any justice be called faith, and not mere opinion, as some have boldly called it, we do not determine: its little value or durability, however, is manifested by the perpetual liability to change to which the doctrines so obtained are ever found to be subject. But it is inconceivable that the Son of God, who suffered and endured so much in order to authenticate and render His revelation attractive to us in its first introduction, could possibly have appointed a means so uncertain and precarious in its results for its perpetuation. On the principle of the advocates of the Bible distribution, the divine revelation is practically indeterminate; but of such a revelation, as was before said, God could not be the Author. IV. On the hypothesis of the advocates of the distribution of the Bible, God designed that it should become by its dispersion a means of general instruction. But this is contrary to the whole analogy of His dealings in other parts of His creation. For instruction is nowhere else conveyed by the distribution of a mere book; but instruction invariably implies the presence and labour of an instructor, and self-taught, in popular estimation, is a term equivalent to badly taught. 66 V. On their hypothesis, also, God designed the Bible as a medicine for all our mental and moral maladies;" but in the analogy of God's works a medicine implies the presence and the control of a physician. So generally is the truth of this admitted, that a recent writer" has observed, that he never saw books with a title purporting to be "Every Man his Own Physician," without thinking that they would have been more truly called "Every Man his Own Poisoner." The same author would probably have been of opinion that the scheme of Bible-distribution really intends to make every man his own spiritual poisoner. VI. The works of God are carried on upon a system laid down and predetermined by Him from the beginning, according to His infinite goodness and wisdom, which developes indeed and unfolds itself, but cannot be subject to any fundamental change. But it is certain from history that the means which God did employ for many centuries for the propagation and perpetuation of the Faith, was not the general distribution of the Scriptures, which, in fact, before the invention of printing was impossible by any means other than miraculous. Nor have the still imperfect and inadequate means which at present exist for the purpose of effecting the distribution of the Bible been in existence quite half-a-century. In order, then, that this scheme should be the dictate of divine wisdom, its advocates must be prepared to maintain that God has wholly recast the plan upon which He has hitherto conducted the propagation of the Gospel, and that His counsels have undergone a fundamental change; - but this is inconceivable. VII. Lastly, in all that Almighty God appoints with the view of benefiting His human creation, the stamp of His choice may be seen evidencing itself in their success and good effects. God said, "Fiat lux, et facta est lux." But the scheme of distributing the Bible, although too recent for its ultimate effects to be otherwise than future. does not even in the effects hitherto visible afford any rational ground for believing it to be from God, rather the evidences of a sad and melancholy failure are on all sides apparent. But not to fall into an error of Professor Malou, who has somewhat overburdened his subject with proofs, here is at least sufficient matter of serious reflection for those who advocate and promote the indiscriminate circulation of the Scriptures. It is impossible that the will of God, *The Doctor. on a measure so eminently important, can be a matter of abstruse secret to those who are willing to enquire; nor, again, does it seem possible that those who act blindly in such a matter upon their own mere assumption can be free from the raost serious guilt, when by calm reflection and enquiry they might ascertain the truth. Indeed, the hearts of all good Catholics have reason to groan with inward misery on viewing the channel into which the wealth, the energy, and enterprise of their country is casting itself. Let us imagine ourselves for a moment on the river's banks above the falls of Niagara, and that we there saw a ship decked out in her colours, gliding down the current with all her sails set, to a fair wind. Her passengers and crew are strewed over her decks, enjoying the sunshine and mingled rock and woodland scenery of the banks, and in innocent merriment they nod a greeting as they pass by. Now, we ourselves are wholly ignorant of their language, and are unable to warn them even by a sign that they care to notice, of the certain death to which they are hurrying. What would be the mingled interest and misery of such a sight! But it is nothing in comparison of the feelings with which the eye of faith ought to regard the spectacle of an enterprising and devoted nation, wasting its energies and treasure upon so cruel and destructive a work of spiritual ruin. Silent spectators Catholics cannot be; yet again, what is the use of their speaking? Will the wealthy and the powerful believe the forebodings of Papist superstition? will enthusiasts stop to care for the chimerical fears of lovers of blindness and ignorance? Unhappily, such is our lot, that we must be prepared to find that the voice of the Catholic clergy may be but that of a little heeded and overlooked remnant, whose words will be as idle tales to those to whom they may be addressed. Such is the usual fate of warnings, particularly those of prophets of evil, of which it is commonly the event alone that vindicates their truth. Καὶ τῶν δόμοιον ἔι τι μὴ πέιθω, τί γάρ, Eschyl. Aga. (1235.) But if we may hardly presume to entertain the sanguine hope to prevail much with those whom we would fain per suade to see the futility and folly of their scheme, at least we shall be allowed to find in it a point of view not a little instructive to our own body. There is a degree of seeming reason in the view that Protestants commonly take, which is often not as properly appreciated as it deserves to be, by those who are acquainted with the really profound inconsistency under which Protestantism labours. Protestants in practice, all admit the necessity of instruction, and consequently its theoretical necessity. And on the supposition of the existence of a divinely instituted Church really teaching and preaching the word of God, they would admit the duty of adhering to, and believing such a Church, since man absolutely needs a religious faith, and can have no reason for not assenting to the truth. But they say that, on looking abroad on the face of the world, they find no sufficient evidence of the existence of such a Church. For the Roman Catholic Church, which boasts that it is the infallible Church, has so many marks of a falsehood of doctrine, and of a corruption of worship and morals in its members, that they cannot without violence to their reason believe it to be an institution of God. We have, therefore, they say, nothing left but to learn and believe the divine revelation in the best way we can, and we therefore apply ourselves to the Scriptures with the best helps we can procure. Our task is not now to vindicate the Catholic Church, and to show in what an untrue light it is here regarded, but to point out, that in proportion as we draw the mind away from the habitual contemplation of the existence of an efficacious and sufficient means for the perpetuation of the revealed truth, in the circulation of the volume of the Holy Scriptures, it will be inevitably thrown upon the Church and her Hierarchy. For the mind that seeks to believe, must have before itself the view of some means of carrying forward the work begun by Jesus Christ and his apostles. Now the Hierarchy of the Church in this, as in all other ages, is the subject of many various opinions on the part of the multitude, particularly of those who do not belong to it, as to the fitness of its several members for the duties of their divine mission. It would seem then that if we are serious in contemplating the spread of the Catholic faith among our estranged countrymen, we of the clergy who bestir ourselves to turn people away from regarding the circulation of the Scriptures as God's chosen means of |