them the people in their notions, and after them again the painters engravers and sculptors in their works, have created. And these are very different persons from the saints whose names they bear.

Land. And are you thus going to dissuade the people from imitating those proceedings which those who write the legends of the saints extol?

Auth. I will try the proceedings which they extol by those rules of action which are reasonable, evangelical, and notoriously acknowledged by our church as pure and right. Let them only be found to agree with this, and I will enforce rather than dissuade from, the imitation subject to that rule of prudence which is contained in the law of nature, the gospel, and the church.

Land. What do you mean by this rule of prudence?

Auth. Why, that I could not advise any young woman to attempt an imitation of St. Chrysostom, by getting up into the pulpit and preaching with all his zeal. Some things can only be imitated by one person, and some by another; and in attempting such imitation, regard must be had to the powers of mind and body, to external circumstances and above all to the principal duties of each particular station.

Land. Very right; I quite understand you. You would only attack such proceedings as, though they may be extolled in the legends, are opposed to reason, the gospel, and the pure system of doctrine held by the church. Are there any such then?

Auth. I have already told you, that I will solidly prove, that many such absurd proceedings have been falsely ascribed to the saints by the legend-writers; and, moreover, I now say, that some of the saints themselves actually did such strange things, as nobody can think right, though they themselves certainly considered them so.

Land. No-that is going too far-such talk as this makes one's ears tingle worse than the report of a cannon. That is fairly letting it out. This is regularly attacking the saints themselves.

Auth. Gently, landlord, gently.

Land. Away with your abominable gently-and here we have come, rapidly enough, to the point that the saints themselves, are to be pulled to pieces; even those whom you have declared your own readiness to honour and reverence.

Auth. And such saints I will honour and reverence, as saints; and I will recommend to everybody else to give them all due honour and reverence. But since even these saints were not God, but fallible men, and since they obtained the eternal reward, not for these proceedings, but for other works, so now that they are enjoying the presence of God they cannot disapprove of one's dissuading people, with all zeal for the glory of God his saints and our holy church, from imitating their failings, in opposition to the legend-writers who represent such imitation as meritorious. The saint does not cease to be a saint, or to be worthy of due honour, even though it should appear that some of his proceedings were not worthy of his character, or entitled to our reverence.

Land. Well, all this I am glad to hear-but still I feel a cold sweat running down my back.

Auth. Only consider the matter properly, and it will quite get rid of your shivering. I see that I must make what I have been saying clearer to your comprehension. I must get you out of your present cold fit into a hot one, to turn the disorder, and cure it more easily. Tell me now, did not you rejoice in your heart when, a week ago, you announced that your daughter's charms had led to her betrothal with such an excellent lover to whom she is soon to be married?

Land. I certainly did rejoice in my heart-but my daughter and her betrothed lover have nothing to do with our present discourse. We are now talking of the saints and their actions; and it is my wish and desire that my daughter and her future husband should imitate the saints.

Auth. Well then I would recommend your daughter to imitate St. Bridget.

Land. In what respect?

Auth. St. Bridget, as the Jesuit Ribadeneira relates in his legend, was also going to be married; and her father, too, anticipated it with great pleasure. She was a person of uncommon beauty. In particular she had fine eyes which presented an exquisitely agreeable appearance, like two bright shining stars, and stole all hearts and attracted them to herself, like the eyes of my landlord's handsome daughter.

Land. You are very polite. She has fine eyes, the little animal, that is the truth.

Auth. The beautiful Bridget, however, prayed to God earnestly, and with many tears, to take away her beauty; whereupon he so turned one of the eyes in her head, that it flowed out and dried up. The marriage was broken off, and she went into a cloister. I would advise your daughter also to use the same prayer, and to imitate St. Bridget.

Land. I am much obliged to you for the prayer; that would break off my daughter's marriage too. Those who think fit may pray away one of their eyes, with all my heart; my daughter shall do no such thing, and if she did she would be a fool for her pains. I beg you would let her eyes stay in her head. I will never believe as long as I live that St. Bridget made any such prayer, and no more do I believe that God caused one of her eyes to run out on any such account. That would be a very pleasant thing to have my daughter one-eyed.

Auth. Do not concern yourself about it. As soon as she gets into the cloister she will have her eye again, as (Ribadeneira tells us) Bridget got hers, because God had only kept it in the meantime in safe custody.

Land. Only hear-I do think you are making fun of me, or the whole matter is a fiction. So many people have gone into the cloister with two eyes that Bridget, if she could not keep out, might have done the same, without thinking it necessary to pray away one of her eyes. The example, however, whether the story is truth or fiction,

does not suit these times when the nunneries are suppressed, and so young women may keep the use of their eyes.

Auth. Well then I will give your son a piece of advice. Let him learn nothing, run away from school, and turn Capuchin; and when in this guise he goes along the street, let him cry, with the humility of St. Felix, "Make way for the ass.”

Land. Hear now-that is too bad. My son shall busy himself to gain useful knowledge for his own benefit and that of his fellow-men, instead of being a humble ass. Moreover, he certainly is not an ass at all; for only yesterday his schoolmaster assured me that he was his best scholar, and that I myself might hear it to-morrow in the examination, which is to be held publicly before a great audience. I would not but be there for all the world.

Auth. Well now, allow me to recommend to you just one single imitation out of a legend, and it is one that suits exactly with to-morrow's examination, which has already by anticipation given you so much pleasure.

Land. Let me beg then that it may be something with more sense and truth than what I have hitherto heard.

Auth. Can there then in a legend, and in the proceeding of a saint which is therein extolled, be anything senseless and improper?

Land. I know what you mean-go on if you please.

Auth. Now then hear this;-The evil one suggested to St. Macarius, the idea of making a journey to Rome

Land. Well, one sees at once that this does not concern me, and my son's examination to-morrow; for it is his Father Professor, and not the evil one who has invited me

Auth. Not so fast-that is nothing to the purpose. The evil one makes use of various persons and means, to compass his ends. He wanted to persuade Macarius to go to Rome for a farther object. That is to say, he thought that when Macarius got to Rome, people would overwhelm him with compliments and congratulations, and the good man would become the prey of pride and vanity.

Land. Ha, ha-and so you think that pride and vanity will make a prey of me when people compliment and congratulate me about my I do not deny that such an honour may somewhat tickle me; but I trust in God that the excitement will not have any such mischievous and sinful consequence.

son.

Auth. That is more than you know. People must not be too selfconfident. They must imitate the saints; and use all the precautions against pride and vanity which they used.

Land. Well, and what precaution did Macarius take in this

matter?

Auth. Instead of going to Rome, he stretched himself at full length on the ground, and had a basket with two measures of sand laid upon his shoulders to put it out of his power to move.

Land. There would certainly be something very clever in it, if, instead of going to my son's examination, I were to lie at full length on the floor, with two measures of sand on my shoulders. I see already that I cannot get on at all without admitting that some of the

VOL. XIV.-Oct. 1838.

3 D

saints actually did very odd things; and that many other things as strange have been falsely ascribed to them by the legend-writers.

Auth. Heaven be thanked that you have come to comprehend that everything done by a holy man is not therefore necessarily holy; but that on the contrary his holiness is to be measured by such of his actions as bore the marks of rational and evangelical notions. And now you will surely allow me to draw my pen against the fabrications, and against the extolling of absurdities, which we meet with in the legends.

(To be continued.)

OBSERVATIONS ON PRUSSIAN OFFICIAL PAPERS RESPECTING THE CONDUCT OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE.

THE two Roman documents, given in the last number, exhibit the crooked policy pursued by the court of Rome. The object of the breve and the instruction evidently is, to appear to concede something, and yet in reality to gain an advantage. But they are more important still, in helping us to form an estimate of papal principles and practice in the nineteenth century. Romanists in this country continually accuse us of misrepresenting the tenets of their society, and especially the nature of papal dispensations. They solemnly deny that the pope has any authority to dispense with the laws of God, to permit any one to commit sin. In the documents now under consideration, he shews that the popular protestant opinion is no misconception, for here he first denounces a certain action as sinful, and then grants a faculty of dispensation, to allow men to commit it. Nothing can be stronger than the language in which Pius VIII. speaks of the sin of contracting a mixed marriage. He says

"It is certain that catholic persons, whether male or female, who thus contract marriages with acatholics, and rashly expose themselves, or their future offspring, to the danger of perversion, not only violate the canonic sanctions, but also directly and grievously sin against natural and divine law."

And again, when a Roman-catholic woman wishes to marry a protestant, he says

"She is to be diligently instructed by the bishop, or parish priest, as to the sentence of the canons respecting such marriages, and seriously to be admonished of the grave wickedness of which she makes herself guilty before God, if she presume to violate them."

And again, in the instruction

"The catholic party sins most grievously, by contracting it contrary to the rules of the catholic religion."

And again, he says they contract it

"To the destruction of their souls."

What, then, would any rational man expect to be the answer of a Christian bishop, but, above all, of the supposed vicar of Christ, when asked to facilitate the commission of that which he pronounces to be a sin against canon, natural, and divine law-a grave wickednessan act involving the soul's destruction of him that commits it? A

mild but dignified refusal; an explicit declaration, that even the successor of St. Peter cannot dispense with natural and divine law; a straightforward and conscientious explanation, addressed in all good faith to the pious King of Prussia, who, in recommending an application to the see of Rome, had himself manifested the sincerity of his intentions, and the tenderness of his respect for the consciences of his Roman-catholic subjects? No such thing. He confesses that to grant the faculty of dispensation is to commit and encourage sin. He protests that he is most unwilling; that he is dragged and forced to it; but he does it notwithstanding. In the instruction to the four bishops, he fairly gives them the power of dispensing, if the Roman-catholic party remain obstinate, at the same time that, by a most unworthy and unchristian evasion, he endeavours, like one of old, to wash his hands of the guilt of consenting to what he has condemned as grievous sin.

"But if any of the four often-mentioned bishops, moved by the gravity of the cause, should grant a dispensation from any of the aforesaid degrees (not, however, from any other degrees, nor from any other impediment) for the contracting of a mixed marriage, of this the supreme pontiff will never, by any act of his, approve. He will, however, tolerate it with a patient, though unwilling mind."

This

What is it that Christ's vicar upon earth, and the successor of St. Peter, will tolerate with a patient though unwilling mind? Nothing of consequence, only a grievous sin against canon, natural, and divine law; a venial indulgence, which will end in "the destruction of souls." Pope Pius VIII. declares himself willing to tolerate sin, and to hear of the eternal ruin of some of his flock with a patient mind; and he gravely tells four bishops of the catholic church, that "this toleration will abundantly satisfy their consciences." toleration is nothing but a disgraceful quibble. Pius VIII. knew in his heart that toleration meant permission; and was not ignorant that he had it in his power, by a simple denial, to refuse any sanction to the transgression of the law of God. The question was proposed to him, whether a certain act was sinful. He answered, Yes, grievously sinful; awfully wicked. A second question was also added: Will you authorize us to give a dispensation for the commission of this grievous sin, this awful wickedness? His holiness again said, Yes; I will give a faculty to four bishops to do so for five years.

What then were the overwhelming and irresistible circumstances that compelled the sovereign pontiff to tolerate sin with a patient though unwilling mind ? Perhaps the prospect of immediate and cruel death-or a Bartholomew's night enacted on monks and cardinals by the infuriated Prussian soldiery-or the Romanists of Prussia chained to the stake by the ministers of a protestant inquisition. Or perhaps he was betrayed into a sudden and precipitate act by the wiliness of Prussian diplomacy. By no means. The Prussian government was employed in protecting the Roman catholics in the enjoyment of the privileges secured to them by the peace of Westphalia and the congress of Vienna, in endowing the Roman-catholic cathedral chapters, and building the Roman-catholic cathedral of Cologne, at an expense of hundreds of thousands of Prussian dollars. There was not much