lis, no fewer than about 2000 priests occupy the town of Brussels alone. And contemplate if you can, the doings of those priests! Would that the book which now lies before me, entitled, Auricular Confession, and Popish Nunneries," by William Hogan, formerly a Roman Catholic Priest, could be read by every individual to whom I now address myself. Would that the contents of this work could be heard as an echo and a re-echo of the few statements which I am about to make of the things which came under my own observation.

And I must beg the readers of this Magazine to pardon me if on this occasion I seem a little to diverge from my accustomed course. I feel, and have long felt, strongly-very strongly-upon the subject I am about to introduce; and I cannot but hope that God may give weight to my feeble endeavours in touching upon the practice of sending children-more especially daughters-to France to perfect (as it is termed) their education to give facility to the acquirement, and beauty to the pronunciation, of the French language; or rather in other words-nor will its all-important character suffer me to offer an apology for the plainness of the expression-to find a more genteel-a more refined— way to hell! Pause ere you condemn me; read in another page, the blood-chilling extract from the book I just now mentioned, and couple with this the deeply humiliating confession I purpose making ere I close this paper, and then ask yourself the question, Can I trust that nobleminded boy-this amiable girl-on the Continent?" I tell you, you will rue it if you do. Be content with such an education as our own English schools will afford, rather than thrust the offspring of your own flesh and blood into the very vortex of ruin, and seal their damnation with your own hand!

66

Hear the statement of the friend to whom I have so frequently alluded "The priests (said he) by a system of catechetical inquiry, will train the young female mind till it arrives at an age and a climax to accomplish their own base purposes." I cannot-I dare not-pollute the pages of this Magazine with relations which I could make, as furnished me by an undoubted authority. I could, were it needful, bring forward the man who himself has seen the deep under-ground and watery recess attached to the convent or nunnery into which many an hapless victim has been hurled; I could produce the man who has heard 'confessions-dying confessions-that would thrill the stoutest heart. But I forbear.

Returning to my narrative. At nine o'clock on the Saturday evening, as my friend and I were walking, we met the host-a priest beneath a canopy supported by other four, and various attendants with torches; these had just been to administer what is called extreme unction to some poor dying and deluded worm. At the ringing of a bell, the inhabitants of the various houses instantly flee to their doors, and prostrating themselves upon their knees, wait till the host has passed by.

I saw but little of the out-door proceedings on the Sabbath; suffice

it, that those whom the mass-bell (the ringing of which had roused me at day-break the previous morning) had summoned to their devotions at five o'clock in the morning, were at an early hour in the afternoon, giving themselves up to every species of frivolty and vain delight. Well might my friend say, "I never go out on the Sabbath" -so painfully repulsive is the scene.

In the Cathedral of Antwerp-that splendid piece of architecturethey were at mass. Plenty at their professed devotions, and plenty to gaze upon them whilst so occupied; but who can imagine anything more farcical? Young and old-rich and poor-bending their knees on those low-seated, high-backed chairs with uplifted hands and eyes, and yet ever and anon gazing at each passing object. In the far distance of that huge building, were two lady-like women, bending the knee as others side by side, but laughing at each other with all the lightsomeness imaginable. And this they call devotion! But confession-disclosures to the priest (ah! and what disclosures!) in these darksome recesses, will in their misapprehension speedily wipe off this, and a thousand times deeper, score! Oh, the delusions of Popery!

In

Attached to another huge building or church, was a representation of Calvary. Here were about a hundred sculptures, large as life. the distance is the mount, and suspended on a cross the Saviour! Underneath is the sepulchre, with a figure lying as if just taken from the tree. Immediately in the back ground is represented Purgatory, showing about six or eight figures enveloped in most agonizing flames. But distorted as were their countenances, they failed, I observed, to keep awake one who had apparently gone there to pray for their deliverance. There he lay stretched on the ground just before them, fast asleep! In the church itself we met three or four fat, gross, bloated priests! their whole demeanour was most disgustingly offensive. I wanted my old Friend Crispin here, just to have drawn, in his wellknown style, their portraiture!

My friend returned to Brussels, and I took the train for Ostend. The carriage in which I sat the first twelve miles was occupied by foreigners, all gentlemen, except two, who I presume from their attire, were Sisters of Charity of a superior order; but the mock humility-the feigned modesty-the downcast gloomy hue, the moment once chanced to scrutinize them, was too evident to pass unheeded! Alas! alas! what shall the last great day disclose!

In journeying from Malines, one end of the carriage was occupied principally by English; the other by eight Sisters of Charity, varying in age from about seventeen to five-and-forty; and certainly for demureness of countenance the two youngest exceeded everything I ever saw. Methinks it would puzzle any painter to picture such a look of sorrow! One sat reading-the other muttering as she counted a string of beads she held in her hands beneath her cloak. The remainder sat in pensive musings! (Oh what a title that would be for some of them!) But, reader, mark me! the moment any of those addressed

each other, the rapid transition of countenance from the greatest possible gravity to the greatest possible levity, was to me perfectly astonishing! I could not have credited it, had I not seen for myself; and if this were acted in a railway carriage, what would not be acted elsewhere? Anything may be forgiven according to Popery! Dive into the innermost recesses of the human breast, infuse therein thoughts— ideas-which previously had no existence, and then in direct opposition to the injunction of the Holy Ghost by Paul (Eph. v. 3, 11, 12), compel the heretofore most guileless lips of unsuspecting females to give them utterance; kindle thereby what James declares is set on fire of hell (Jas. iii. 6); and then the frail, the hapless mortal-yes, your daughter, Sir, sent to France to educate-is in the hands, the sacriiegious hands-of vile-of loathsome, soul-destroying priests! Shall I stop? Nay. I have not fulfilled my promise. talking about confession-I must confess!

I have been

I had an hour after breakfast to spend at Ostend on the Tuesday morning, before I took the Steamer; and, strolling about the Town, curiosity led me as usual into the Church! There were two priests saying mass (I don't know what it really means-do you, reader?

there is a vast deal of bowing, bell-ringing, and mummery; but what it is all about I know not); there again was a multitude-principally of the poorer sort-scattered here and there at their devotions (?) but oh! the indignation that I felt against the priests for thus misleading those poor deluded creatures! Here friend Crispin was sadly wanted again, and yet had he been present, I almost question whether he or I should have been here to relate our adventures! for their dungeons I have no doubt are easily accessible. As it was, my ire was wrought up to a pitch that I felt as if I could have gone and inflicted summary corporeal punishment upon the officials at that idolatrous altar. So great was my abhorrence of them, and of their system! I came out, and close by the door, to stamp itself upon the gaze of every passer by, was another large crucifix, and another purgatory! This heightened my disgust, and I turned away in anger, longing for the time to leave the iniquitous-the soul-deceiving scene; but as I passed the other end of the church, a child was walking towards me, crying. My pity was aroused, and at the moment out walked a Popish priest-not of the loathsome herd of yesterday, but a tall portly man-of open ruddy countenance, and prepossessing carriage. He addressed the child most tenderly, and I thought, "How kind you are! Would that I knew your language, or you mine, that I might reason with you of the folly of your souldeluding system!" Reader! his track was mine-for some hundred yards we walked within a few paces of each other. And then gazing on his benevolent exterior-refleeting on the kindness and condescension just displayed, the dark flash darted through my mind, "If this be so, how nice it were to be a Popish priest." Reader, I blush to own it, but I felt a momentary giving way-a mental yielding-to that vile, that hellish system! I felt as one stricken to the earth-deprived of

power-a melancholy wreck of one caught in the snare he himself had striven to caution others of. The exercises of those passing moments I never shall forget; for though not an eye but His who reads with one Omniscient glance, each secret of ten thousand times ten thousand hearts, could mark the slightest outward movement, yet there was that mental fall-that secret, partial, criminal acquiescence, that I felt as one just fallen in the sight of God. And never, never did the cry more earnestly burst forth from an aching, full-charged heart, "Hold thou me up, and then I shall be safe!" "Hold up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip not!" "I beseech thee, keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me."

Readers! parents! you for whom I principally have penned this! you for whose children's sake I make this deeply humiliating confession! need I say more? If I cradled in the most unutterable detestation of Popery in all its forms; if I, who have the liveliest recollection, what gratitude to God flowed from my parents' hearts when year after year the Catholic Relief Bill was thrown out in Parliament; if I, who once expended hundreds to stem the coming torrent; if I whose feeble pen has long employed its effort-tiny though it be-to stay the approaching fiend; if I, whose hope whose only hope of life and immortality, is not by works of righteousness which I have done, but solely by the precious blood-the justifying righteousness-of Jesus, my all-precious Lord : if I thus fell-if the professions of twenty years were in a moment hazarded—what—oh, what may you expect from poor, so-easily-misguided youth? Believe me, once I feared the horrors of the Popish systemthe dungeon, rack, and fiery ordeal, would make me cry, in dismal apprehension, "Who is sufficient?" but now its cunning craft-its treacherous insinuating power; so congenial to the human breast; so nice to carnal nature; so captivating to a hand ready to take the deadliest poison be it but served in lordly dish: these serpent-wiles, I say, are now my dread for you-for you, yes, and for myself! I write with trembling hand; although on summing up my lengthened detail of a four days' tour, fraught to me with liveliest interest, and in which my ever-gracious God through each and every circumstance did fulfil his covenant engagement that "No evil should befall me, nor any plague come nigh my dwelling," yet those passing moments, few as were their number, have left upon my heart and mind the deepest sensibility of weakness. 'Tis Popery within I fear; 'tis that which eagerly receives the bait thrown with satanic artifice and skill. Our God, and Him alone, can keep preserve-uphold us to the end; for, though not a child of his can perish, nor one be snatched from his Almighty hand, yet the fall, however temporary, may cause the broken bone, and the halting, limping gait even to the grave!

Reader, how stand matters with you? if you are not in Christrooted and grounded in Him-washed in his blood, clothed in his

righteousness, and standing complete in Him, without a vestige of anything comely or acceptable of your own; a day of temptation, trial, or persecution will no sooner dawn, than the whole will be swept away, and your case will be pitiable indeed!

THE EDITOR.

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE REV. HENRY FOWLER,

To Mrs. Cullen.

MY VERY DEAR SISTER IN BONDS THAT WILL OUTLIVE OLD TIME,

I said to my wife last night, that I should be glad to have a letter from you, and this morning I thought it rather remarkable, that I should receive one.

I have heard a little of the disturbance and division among you, from another quarter; and sorry I am to hear it. But these things must be, and our God, who sees not as man sees, has designs to answer by it, that we cannot at present see. No doubt many of my friends are ready to say to me," All this is your fault, you should have tarried here, and then all this would not have happened." The disconsolate Martha was once in the same path, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." But as that affliction was for the glory of God, and for the manifestation of Jesus' grace and power, so is the present affliction to my people in Birmingham; 'tis for the trial of their faith, and for the exercise of their patience; and while I look at the circumstance with deep concern, I find relief in my own mind from the recollection of the advice I gave them before I left the old place. And when I reflect on the many clear proofs of God's power attending my preaching since I came to London, I feel satisfied that God's design was for me to prophecy among the thick boughs; but this does not allow that I must always continue here.

My ministry is best suited to the tried and exercised of God's flock; and I have a great many under me, gathered from all quarters, who are tried without and within, by a bad heart, and by the devil; and they have a preacher that just suits them. Not that they always get a blessing under the preached word, no! but if they obtain no present relief they hear their path scripturally pointed out, and that becomes encou raging to their troubled souls, and keeps them from sinking lower,

There are times, my dear Mary Cullen, when we can ha,dly believe