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of blood, which is essential to a propitiatory sacrifice, and for all these delusions we must pay money! What merchandize of souls is this? What a painful deception!

Let

Let Roman Catholics seek comfort in the mass, I am satisfied with the glories of calvary. them bow down and adore the wafer raised by the priests; I will cling to the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross. Let papists trust in the daily repeated sacrifice of the mass for the remission of their sins; I am content with the finished work and the all prevailing intercession of Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father. Thither I will go for comfort, he shall be my hope in life and in death; in him I shall not be disappointed, for his blood is most precious, and cleanseth from all sin. The name of Jesus shall be my strong tower, and in it I shall find safety.Let Roman Catholics fly to their queen of heaven, the Virgin Mary; I will fly to the rock, Jesus Christ, the only anchor of my hope, and then I shall be enabled to sing with all the redeemed,

"Jesus thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress,
'Midst flaming worlds in thee arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head."

HEATHEN ROME AND PAPAL ROME.

After this result of my Biblical researches as detailed in the preceding chapter, my eyes were opened; my mind became unbiased, I celebrated the Mass because it was a source of income, I considered the Breviary a humbug and never repeated it; I practiced every form because I was obliged to do it; in one word I did as others did. Every ecclesiastical event which I considered before as a matter of established rule in the church, became now a subject of doubt and investigation; every day I detected new corruptions; in the sacred college I saw spiritual tyrants and in every priest a spy whom I dreaded and fled as from a pest. Whenever an opportunity was offered I opened my mind to some friend, who felt the papal yoke as heavy as myself; but of what use? the evil was without a remedy, a word, a sigh is a mortal sin, and the result would be fatal to my future happiness. The reading of the Bible was no consolation for me, I read it to my own damnation, for I read it without prayer, without self

examination. As my intention is to institute a comparison between heathen Rome and papal Rome, I will at once proceed.

The Pantheon is one of the oldest churches and of the most classical architecture in the city of Rome. In the time of heathen Rome it was a temple dedicated to all the Gods. Papal Rome has dedicated it to no God at all, but to the Virgin Mary only. The niches of that church in the time of heathen Rome were filled with the finest bronze statues, which represented [the Dii majores] the chief gods. Papal Rome turned them out, and placed tutelar gods in their places, as St. Peter, John and James, &c. Heathen Rome filled the niches of their temples with bronze gods, papal Rome with wooden saints.

The reader will be curious to know what papal Rome did with these idols? Whether they were burned, destroyed, or placed in the museum as relics of antiquity? No! Pope Barbarini [called Urban VIII.] the Vicar af God, melted all the gods together, and metamorphosed them into four collossal pillars of the Corinthian order, which raised their gigantic heads even with the cupola of St. Peters, and adorn the high altar where the

Pope celebrates the Mass.

Rome !1

Poor gods! poor

Returning to the Pantheon, I must observe that in the church there is a statue, which is called, "La Madonna del Sasso," in plain English, The Lady of the Stone. Why she is called so;

"The Patnheon is the most interesting antiquity in Rome; its elegance and grandeur exhibit the taste of the ancient Romans. This temple was erected by Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, and repaired by Septimus Severus and Caracalla. The vestibulum is supported by sixteen Corinthian columns of oriental granite, fifteen feet in circumference and forty-two high. The original doors were vandalized by Genseric, and lost in the Sicilian sea. The interior of the Pantheon is circular, with one window only, and that in the centre of the dome; by this opening which is on the roof, the edifice receives its only light. The dia meter of the temple is one hundred and forty-three feet, exclusive of the walls, which are twenty feet in thickness. The hight was originally equal to the diameter, until the pavement was elevated to correspond with the new portico, which was made higher than the ori ginal one. It would afford me great pleasure if I could describe the splendor of that temple before it was robbed by Urban VIII. from the family Barbarini.

The Pantheon was dedicated to all gods. A statue of Jupitar Tonans, or the Avenger, stood in the centre of the tribuna; the infernal deities on the pavement, the terestrial on the lower niches in the walls, and the celestial in the upper niches. The walls were once adorned with busts, inscriptions, and monuments in memory of great men. Among the statues of the Pantheon, Pliny mentions one, which had ear-rings made of a pearl cut in two, being the fellow of that which Cleopatra dissolved in vinegar, and drank to the health of Mark Antony.

and how she came there, whether she entered the church by a miracle or was carried there, I cannot say, because I never troubled myself about her origin; but one thing I know, because all the priests in Rome say so, and all the devotees in the city testify to it, that she is a great miracle working lady. She however never wrought one for me, though I said many ave marias upon bended knees to her, but others who have been lame, blind, or paralitic, or labouring under some other cronical disease, were [as they say] cured by her, so that the weekly income of the offerings were over a hundred dollars, without the silver hands and feet, golden pins and chains, or other costly ornaments, which those so cured bring to adorn her, as an act of pious gratitude. I have seen that Stone Lady dressed more elegantly and more costly than any queen or empress upon the earth can ever be. It shows that the priests of Rome have much taste in dressing ladies.

As the pleasures of this world are transitory, so was the greatness of the blessed Stone Lady destined to be evanescent. It was a bright day, bright in every respect for the monks of St. Au gustine, when the ladies and persons of all classes in the city of Rome directed there steps to the

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