some of his writings in controversy with the Zuinglian divines, to be translated for the use of the Italians. Dr. M'Crie's reflections on this subject are admirable both in themselves and in their expression. (6 Alas! what is man? What are great men, who would be thought, or are represented by their fond admirers, to be gods? A lie-lighter than vanity. Willingly would I have passed over this portion of history, and spared the memory of a man who has deserved so much of the world, and whose character, notwithstanding all the infirmities and faults which attach to it, will never cease to be contemplated with admiration and gratitude. But the truth must be told. The violence with which Luther acted in the dispute that arose between him and his brethren respecting the sacrament, is too well known; but never did the character of the reformer sink so much into that of the petty leader of a party, as it did on the present occasion. Some excuse may be found for the manner in which he conducted himself towards those who opposed his favourite dogma in Germany, or even in Switzerland; but one is utterly at a loss to conceive the shadow of an apology for his having acted as he did in reference to the Italians. Surely he ought to have considered that the whole cause of evangelical religion was at stake among them, that they were few in number and rude in knowledge, that there were many things which they were not yet able to bear, that they were as sheep in the midst of wolves, and that the only tendency of his advice was to set them by the ears, to divide and scatter, and drive them into the mouths of the wild beasts which stood ready to devour them. This was foreseen by the amiable and pacific Melancthon, who had always written in a very different strain to his correspondents in Italy; and who deplored this rash step of his colleague, although the mildness and timidity of his disposition prevented him on this, as on other occasions, from adopting those decisive measures which might have counteracted in some degree its baneful effects."-pp. 147, 148. prison, and others forced to flee into foreign countries. Among the latter were Lælius Socinus, Camillus Siculus, Franciscus Niger, Ochino, Alciati, Gentilis, and Blandrata. These writers have gone so far as to present us with a creed or system of doctrine agreed upon by the collegiates of Vicenza, as the result of their joint inquiries and discussion."-pp. 153, 154. But another and more injurious source of variance among the Italian Protestants, was now springing up to trouble them. The subtile and speculative genius of Italy delighted to disport itself in hazardous ground, and dallied with specious and sceptical imaginations, until it overpassed the dangerous verge beyond which lay darkness and fatal error. "Italian theology," wrote Melancthon, "abounds with Platonic theories; and it will be no easy matter to bring them back, from that vain-glorious science of which they are so fond, to truth and simplicity of explication." On this statement, it is quite clear that nothing connected with the argument of Socinianism, depends; and it seems to have been, if not invented, at least caught at, as giving somewhat of distinction and éclat to the origin of a favoured sect. Dr. M'Crie shows, very satisfactorily, that it is by no means entitled to credit. It was not published until a century after the date in question, nor is it supported by documents either original or collateral. Neither Faustus Socinus, nor his biographer, "the Polonian Knight," advert to it; nor do the particulars related tally with what is known concerning the conduct and circumstances of several of the individuals mentioned. "Socinian writers have fixed the origin of their sect at this period. According to their account, upwards of forty individuals of great talents and learning were in the habit of meeting in private conferences or colleges within the territories of Venice, and chiefly at Vicenza, to deliberate on the plan of forming a purer faith, by discarding a number of opinions held by Protestants as well as Papists; but these meetings, being discovered by the treachery of an individual, were dispersed in the year 1546; some of the members having been thrown into We pass over much interesting matter, illustrative of the sentiments prevailing among the more conscientious members of the church of Rome. There were not a few pious women, who either specifically embraced the principles of the Reformation, or adopted its vital doctrines without a positive renunciation of the Romish communion. And even among the great dignitaries of the hierarchy, there were those who, beneath Rome's purple, hid a Protestant's feelings: cardinals, bishops, abbots, priests were pricked to the heart, and " Italy," in the language of Curio, "our native country" was travailing in birth." But from all this we must turn aside, that we may have room for a brief exposition of the remaining section of this important volume. At length, Rome was roused: and a most interesting chapter gives an account of the decided measures adopted for the suppression of the Reformation in Italy. The Inquisition established its dreadful tribunals in all directions; and if this tremendous scourge has not been so noted for its ferocity in that country, as in Spain, it has not been owing to its greater mildness that it has éscaped an equal censure, but from its deeper hypocrisy and its affectation of a more lenient process. In Venice, the introduction of the system was long resisted, and it was never suffered to place itself altogether beyond the control of the civil power; but the, alliance does not seem to have abated much from its rigour. "Acts of cruelty commenced, which continued for years to disgrace the criminal jurisdiction of the republic. Drowning was the mode of death to which they doomed the Protestants, either because it was less cruel and odious than committing them to the flames, or because it accorded with the customs of Venice. But if the autos da fé of the queen of the Adriatic were less barbarous than those of Spain, the solitude and silence with which they were accompanied, was calculated to excite the deepest horror. At the dead hour of midnight, the prisoner was taken from his cell, and put into a gondola or Venetian boat, attended only, besides the sailors, by a single priest, to act as confessor. He was rowed out into the sea be yond the Two Castles, where another boat was in waiting. A plank was then laid across the two gondolas, upon which the prisoner, having his body chained, and a heavy stone affixed to his feet, was placed; and, on a signal given, the gondolas retiring from one another, he was precipitated into the deep. "The first person who appears to have suffered martyrdom at Venice, was Julio Guirlauda, a native of the Trevisano. When set on the plank, he cheerfully bade the captain farewell, and sank calling on the Lord Jesus. Antonio Ricetto, of Vicenza, was held in such respect, that, subsequently to his conviction, the senators offered to restore him not only to his liberty, but also to the whole of his property, part of which had been sold, and the rest promised away, provided he would conform to the church of Rome. The firmness of Ricetto was put to a still severer test: his son, a boy of twelve years of age, having been admitted into the prison, fell at his feet, and supplicated him in the most melting strains, to accept of the offers made him, and not leave his child an orphan. The keeper of the prison having told him one day, with the view of inducing him to recant, that one of his companions had yielded, he merely replied, ' What is that to me?' And in the gondola, and on the plank, he retained his firmness; praying for those who ignorantly put him to death, and commending his soul to his Saviour."-pp. 232-234. In other places, the spiritual power set the civil authorities at defiance. Not always, however, with impunity; for at Faenza, a nobleman, popular from his virtues, having been tortured to death on suspicion of Lutheranism, the people rose in fury, demolished the house of the Inquisition, and treated the altars and images with the utmost indignity, while some of the priests were trampled to death in the tumult. "Paul III. threw many of the Protestants into the prisons of Rome; they were brought forth to execution by Julius III.; and Paul IV. followed in the bloody track of his predecessor. Under the latter, the Inquisition spread alarm every where, and created the very evils which it sought to allay. Princes and princesses, priests, friars, and bishops, entire academies, the sacred college, and even the holy office itself, fell under the suspicion of heretical pravity. The conclave was subjected to an expurgatory process. Cardinals Morone and Pole, with Fosearari, bishop of Modena, Aloysio Priuli, and other persons of eminence, were prosecuted as heretics. It was at last found necessary to introduce laymen into the inquisition, because,' to use the words of a contemporary writer, not only many bishops, and vicars, and friars, but also many of the inquisitors themselves, were tainted with heresy.' Much of the extravagance displayed at this time, is, no doubt, to be ascribed to the personal fanaticism and jealousy of the pontiff, who sent for some of the cardinals to his death-bed, and recommended the Inquisition to their support with his latest breath. Such was the frenzied zeal of this infallible dotard, that, if his life had been spared a little longer, the poet's description of the effects of superstition would have been realized, ‘and one capricious curse enveloped | all.' Irritated by his violent proceedings, and by the extortion and rapine with which they were accompanied, the inhabitants of Rome, as soon as the tidings of his death transpired, rose in tumult, burnt the house of inquisition to the ground, after having liberated all the prisoners, broke down the statue which Paul had erected for himself, and dragging its members with ropes through the streets, threw them into the Tiber."―pp. 268–270. On the whole, however, these savage persecutions were successful in their object. Circumstances were favourable to the efforts of spiritual tyranny, and the outward profession of evangelical truth was effectually suppressed. The concluding chapter gives a series of interesting particulars connected with the history of the foreign Italian churches, and a sketch of the progress of Protestantism among the cities of the Grisons. An Appendix of deeply interesting extracts and documents, closes a work of uncommon value. At the close of his Preface, Dr. M'Crie promises "An Account of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Spain." It is now some time since this pledge was given, and we trust that it will be speedily redeemed. From the New Baptist Miscellany. INDIA WITHIN THE GANGES. PERSECUTIONS AND OPPRESSIONS SUFFERED BY NATIVE CHRISTIANS. IN proportion as Christianity, by the increase of its converts among the heathen, becomes a matter of notoriety, and affects the stability of idol worship or the interests of its adherents, we must expect to hear of the grossest acts of oppression against those converts whose principles will forbid revenge, and whose weakness will not enable them to seek justice. Some affecting instances of this kind have been suffered by converts in connexion with the agents of the Church Missionary Society in Tennevelly, a province of the Carnatic, in Northern India. It is the law in this place, that whatever is affirmed by witnesses, the judge or magistrate is compelled to decide in favour of it. Now these unprincipled heathen can get any number of witnesses, for a few fanams, to swear to any thing; and it is in this way that most crying acts of injustice are committed, even by the European magistrates, contrary to their own wish. The worst in these circumstances is, that the magistrate can receive no private information respecting any case; which, if he could, would give him much light on it: this is just, in case it be practised with respect to both parties; but the fact is, that the heathen have always secret intercourse with the Tasildar and court servants; who, notwithstanding all injunctions to the contrary, are easily bribed to make such representations to their European master as they think best; the Christian cannot do this: and the court officers, who are heathen, willingly lend themselves to the oppression of the Christians, favouring the heathen. That such is the way in which justice is administered in these parts, it is notorious; and we could multiply instances of the most distressing consequences of it, by which the innocent, not only among the Christians, but also among the heathen, suffer. The trial by The trial by witnesses is so far right, if all have the same principles of justice, or the same check against committing perjuries. The Christians have a check, by the instructions which they receive: the heathen have it not, and therefore can go on with impunity. There are shrewd and wicked heathen in this district, who actually | make a trade of false accusations, who get a number of witnesses together, to swear to any thing: the accused party is often entirely innocent of the alleged crime; but, on his being apprehended, rather than risk being carried one hundred miles to the court, having there to wait in prison perhaps six or eight months, leaving his family to starve, he secretly compromises with the accuser, pays him some money, and so is let free; and in this traffic peons and kutchery-writers are all implicated, and share in the spoil. Surely this state of things requires the attention of the govern ment. that the increase of taxes is a mere caprice of the accountant, they have peons sent to them, who drag these "Christian fellows" to prison, and illtreat them: this wicked practice obtains throughout the district. It will be said that the people may complain, and then they will get redress. But, in the first place, their oppressors have many means of oppressing them still more, in case they complain; for fear of which, they rather suffer quietly; or, they are ignorant of kutchery proceedings, and manage their af fairs so badly, that the craft of their opponents nearly always triumphs. Last year the subcollector introduced a plan for checking such oppressions, by giving to each householder a document of what he had to pay; but all the evil is not taken away thereby; the accountant still finds pretexts to ask more than is due, or can still leave out from his register those whom he wishes to favour; and so it happens, that the people of a certain employment in one village have to pay double or triple the amount, that the people of the same employment in the neighbouring villages have to pay. : enmity against the heathen inhabitants, they also have to suffer in a similar manner; but, in his reports to the collector, of those who will not pay, the accountant carefully excludes the heathen from the list, and always puts forth the Christians; so that persons who do not know the real state of things, are led to think that these only are unwilling to pay. All this adds to the troubles of the Christians. Thus, Native Christians have many difficulIn the tax affairs it is no better. A number ties and vexations to contend with, and the goof villages have a public accountant; whose vernment is cheated and sure we are, that object is to fill his chatties with money, and when the country is christianized, the governwho does his duty just so far as may prevent ment's treasury will be filled to half the amount him from being detected in his frauds. His more than what it now receives, owing to the duty is, to number the people, to adjust their cheats which these accountants at present taxes according to their respective employ-practise. Occasionally, when these men have ments, and to collect them: in this, he practhis, he practises all possible skill to cheat the government and to oppress the people: suppose there are in a village thirty houses, fifteen of which come under one sort of taxes, and fifteen under another, of these fifteen he will register only four, and let the rest go free, taking a bribe from them; and all the fifteen pay only so much as would come upon four. This was the case with a village before it came under Christian instruction; after that, the people were instructed not to give bribes, and to pay to government what is due. The accountant comes the next year, with the intention of playing the same trick over again: the people refuse to give him a bribe: instantly he changes his account, and registers them all; so that now they must pay nine or ten tanams each, whereas formerly they paid but two or three. His registering them all is more than just; but as the Christians are still men, having no clear idea about taxes, they refuse to pay, saying, "We have all along paid only so much, and now we are required to pay two or three times more." The accountant has a fair excuse, in case they complain; and has many ways of preventing the discovery of the cheats: oftentimes the people know nothing about his frauds; the accountant having made up matters secretly with one or two of the head men or owners of the village. Now, when the people become Christians, they will not dance according to the pipe of these men: instantly they put the whole tax upon them, and make such proposals as these: "Come over to our village -worship again our idols-smear ashes on your forehead, and you shall be as happy as before." On a refusal, which they often make, thinking seriously, from ignorance of, facts, But this is not all. When the people were in heathenism, they paid certain taxes to idol temples for the performance of idolatry, and other contributions for the maintenance of dancing-girls, travelling, sunnyasies, &c.: now becoming Christians, they think themselves justly freed from such contributions, but the accountant comes and takes the same from them as from the heathen: they of course, refuse, and have to suffer for it. The Christians have applied to the collector; he found it just that they should be exempted from such taxes, but could not remit them without an order from the Board of Revenue. A petition, with the indorsement of the collector, was sent to Madras; but ten or twelve months have. elapsed, and no answer has yet arrived. In the mean while, the people are greatly harassed. To oblige Christians to pay for idolatrous worship is, indeed, not a little hard; and we really do not know what to advise them, whether to pay or not; if they do not pay, they are put in prison and their goods sold. From the Christian Observer. -Let us cast our eyes upon the Roman Ca Conducted by Members of the Established Church of tholic devotee; let us look to his standard max England. ESSAYS ON SUPERSTITION. In inviting the attention of your readers to a series of communications on the manifold and varied forms in which the offspring of superstition cross our path, I must claim their indulgence, should I sometimes impugn the truth of any long-cherished prejudices; and, especially, should I frequently refer to a bodily cause, ef fects which some of them may have attributed to a purely spiritual agency: and therefore I think it necessary to prefix to this inquiry, the principles upon which it is undertaken. I. The cause of true religion always loses ground, in proportion as it is associated with any system of irrational belief. II. The cause of true religion always gains an accession of influence, and obtains an extension of its benefits, in proportion as the faith of its disciples is supported by knowledge, enlight- | ened by the torch of scientific research, and chastened by the delicacy of true taste. III. The honour of God is vindicated, and the kingdom of Christ is enlarged; the faith of the humble and sincere is confirmed; the prejudices of such as are satisfied with this world's wisdom are subdued; the fears of the ignorant are superseded; and the hope and confidence of the just are supported, by being placed on a basis of scientific and rational explanation, rather than on the fears of ignorance, or on a measure of belief which never was designed for a revelation addressed to God's rational creatures. im of, "I believe, because it is incredible;" let us contemplate the homage which he offers to his priest, not on the score of influence arising from superior sacredness of character,— from intellectual and moral worth, or in return for the instruction he receives; for all these may be wanting: he may be grossly and openly profligate, profoundly ignorant, and wholly careless of the real wants of his flock; yet homage, might I not almost say adoration? is yielded to his ministerial character as confessor, and as possessing the power of granting or withholding absolution, rescuing his supplicant from the torments of purgatory, or suffering him to experience its prolonged punishments; let us advert to his belief in the power of the priest to forgive sins, upon being paid for it, although it is declared that none can forgive sins except God alone ;-let us contemplate the catalogue of faults which includes murder, theft, adultery, and the like, as admitting of pecuniary atonement; nay, farther, let us estimate the prospective indulgence which may be obtained to commit sin in future, upon a scale proportioned to the wealth of the individuals;—let us look to the mummery of his religion, to its imposing ceremonial, and its dread of the circulation of the Bible ;-let us accurately weigh its favourite doctrine of transubstantiation, and of the real presence; its constant hostility to the diffusion of intellectual culture; its claim to infallibility for all its decisions, and its permanent substitution of a belief in the church, for faith in Christ, and of penances and pilgrimages for holiness of life; and then let us see whether all the loveliness and spirituality, and almost all the influence of Christianity be not lost by its degrading association with that which is irrational. Witness again the effect of this system upon the will and upon the intellect: man loses his free agency and individual accountability; his mind is grasped by the terrors of superstition, as by a charm of adamant; he has no will but that of his priest, and no occasion for the exercise of judgment, or of the other intellectual faculties; he is fast bound by the thraldom of the most enthralling power; his conscience is the interest of his spiritual pastor, and the fear of his resentment, rather than the love of his heavenly Father, and the desire of obedience to his commands. Effects, similar in kind though not in degree, to these are produced wherever a spirit of Roman Catholicism is abroad throughout the world, and under every possible disguise; that is, when any thing short of the pure and simple evangelical piety of the Bible is substituted as the ground of hope, or the rule of conduct; whenever any irrational attachment to forms and ceremonies is placed in the room of the worship of the Most High God. These propositions require a little farther development; and first, the cause of true religion in the world always loses ground, in proportion as it is associated with any system of irrational belief.-Reflection teaches us, that thus it must be: for since revealed religion was designed for God's most perfect work, and as it was destined to restore man to the image of God, in order that he might show forth the glory of his Creator and Redeemer; it is manifest, that this object will be accomplished only in proportion as he resembles his Maker. And since perfect knowledge forms one of the attributes of the Divine character, his creatures will be like him in this respect, only as the clouds of ignorance have been chased away by the influence of the Holy Spirit, upon the exertion of those talents which man has received; as the undefined forms of twilight are rendered visible in all their proportions by the result of increasing acquaintance; as his hopes are enlarged by being placed on a firmer basis; as his affections are invigorated by discoveries of the infinite care; and goodness, and love of his Heavenly Father; as his intellectual powers are strengthened and matured by constant exercise on a wider, and a more successful field of inquiry and observation; and as he is enabled to explain phenomena, and account for circumstances, which have been termed superna-dan-in the endless and sensual mythology of tural, and to know the wise and rational agency of that good Providence which upholds and governs all things by the word of the Divine If it were necessary to accumulate proofs of this position, they might readily be found in the system of religious belief of the Mohamme the Hindoo—or in the still less enlightened notions of the North American Indian; all tending to show, that in proportion as man departs from that which is reasonable, he becomes the willing victim of ignorance. the dehased sla of his passions, and still further and further alienated from the God of his life; experience thus affording the strongest confirmation of our position. + II. The cause of true religion always gains an accession of influence, and obtains an extension of its benefits, in proportion as the faith of its disciples is supported by knowledge, enlightened by the torch of scientific research, and chastened by the delicacy of true taste. Real Christianity always gains by inquiry: once get a man to think over his state, and the suitable ness of religion to his wants; once enlist his understanding in the pursuit, and let him be truly in earnest in asking what is his duty towards God and his neighbour; and there is every hope for him. The great mischief is, that he will not think; that he will not consider; and that he will be contented with a few irrational services, placing these in the room of principled obedience. shown that the same law attaches to all the productions of nature; and precisely because the human mind, formed originally with capaci ties to comprehend the rationale of its own phenomena, has lost that power by the debasing influence to which it has been subjected. It has been shown, too, that the difficulties of infidelity involve an exercise of belief far greater than the mysteries of religion, and monstrous in proportion to the cheerless annihilation with which they are connected: the doubts of feeble and unconvinced, but sincere, inquirers have been chased away, like the summer's mist which has still lingered on the crest of our hills, till it has vanished before the light and heat of the full-born day: and the faith, and hope, and love, and joy of the Christian have been deepened in their hold upon his heart, while they have expanded into all that is virtuous in principle, all that is pure and benevolent in feeling, all that is lovely and excellent in conduct. Prejudice is diminished by the association of the understanding with religious belief. While Moreover Christianity will derive an accesthe man of science and intellectual attainment sion of strength from the delicacy of true taste: can persuade himself that religion consists in a its influence upon the mind will be to give it a certain influence upon the passions and affec- more extensive hold upon the sympathies of tions, exerted he knows not how, and by a mys- others; while to the man of simple literary terious agency the very existence of which he taste, it will come recommended and adorned almost hesitates to acknowledge, he considers with its genuine qualities, instead of being asit only as the heritage of weak minds, and de- sociated with that which is opposed to its real signed to govern the ignorant: but when he nature; and thus its agency will be extended sees its doctrines embraced upon conviction, by both above and below, from the giant of literaindividuals of whose intellectual capacity he ture, to the least expanded intellect among the can entertain no doubt; and when he perceives sincere and simple-hearted, the poor and illithat such minds are only energised in the pur- terate. Besides, there will be developed a desuit of knowledge, and refined and purified; licate perception, by which the finer shades of when the powers of the judgment are confess- moral beauty will be seized and appropriated; edly deepened, and the benevolent affections an acquaintance with mind, and its powers and are expanded; when argument is called in to operations will be widened; the removal of the defence of their opinions, and all the re- prejudice will unveil the wide field of mental sources of learning are placed in requisition, to research; all that is sublime and beautiful in prove the reality, as well as the reasonable nature or in character will be doubly enjoyed; ground, of their convictions; he is assured that there will be a permanent delight in cultivatreligion is not that contracting study which he ing the intellectual faculty, and in consecratonce thought it, but that it possesses the powering its powers to the service of Him from whom even of ennobling the mind: and thus the veil of prejudice is blown aside, the film of visual delusion is dissipated, and at least the soil is prepared for the reception of Divine truth. all blessings flow; the substantial worth of the individual will be increased, while his capacity for usefulness, and his desire after it, will be augmented; the productions of reason and intellect Again; learning, and the majesty of culti-will be estimated aright, and will be tested, as vated mind, exert an astonishing influence over they ought to be, by their title to the possession popular opinion, and must therefore add strength of moral beauty; and this again will be referred to the cause of Christianity, in proportion to for its standard, to the character of highest vathe extent of such agency. And this will ope- lue, even to Christ who is the chief among ten rate both in the way of precept and example: thousand, and altogether lovely. the opinion of the reputed wise is quoted by the majority of those who think not for themselves; their powers of persuasion are very great: and their example is bounded only by the extent to which it can be seen. The employment of these talents and researches upon Biblical Criticism has not been thrown away: many seeming incongruities have been explained; many difficulties have been removed: light has beamed upon that which was obscure; the appearance of contradiction has been reconciled; and the harmony of the Scriptures has been fully established: the objections of the infidel have been answered; and while it has been allowed that there are mysteries in religion far beyond the comprehension of a finite capacity, it has also been III. But, thirdly, I have stated that the honour of God is vindicated, and the kingdom of Christ is enlarged: the faith of the humble and sincere is confirmed; the prejudices of thosewho are satisfied with this world's wisdom are subdued; the fears of the ignorant are superseded; and the hopes and confidence of the just are supported, by being placed on a basis of scientific and rational explanation, rather than on the fears of ignorance, or on a measure of belief which never was designed for a revelation addressed to God's rational crea tures. Christianity is not a religion of mere feeling and passion; for, although it should come from the heart, it must be based on the under'standing, and be supported by the intellect ; |