praising, here in these United States, one St. Patrick, who died in Ireland in 493, how absurd! How is piety to be promoted by it, I should like to know!

By the way, what is high mass in distinction from low mass? They differ in several respects. Among the peculiarities of high mass, this, I believe, is one, that it is more expensive than low mass. If you want high mass said for a poor suffering soul in purgatory, you have to pay more than you do if you are content with low mass. And so it should be, for the high mass is worth more. Low mass scarcely makes an impression on a soul in purgatory. It is high mass that does the business effectually and expeditiously. As for us Protestants, we have nothing to do with these masses. We do not find any thing said about them in the Bible. The Catholic will pardon me, I hope, for alluding to the Bible. I am aware that it is no good authority with him, except now and then a verse, (entirely misunderstood,) such as that about the rock, which they say was Peter, on whom the church was built, according to them! Only think now, a man that denied the founder of Christianity three times with profane oaths, himself the foundation of the whole church! Nothing else for it to rest upon but Peter! But the beauty of it is that this foundation should have had a long series of fundamental successors, down to the present Pope! I always supposed that when a foundation is laid, there is an end of it, and that all after belongs to the superstructure. But this is a digression. I was speaking of us Protestants, that we reject masses. And so we acknowledge no distinction of days, but the Lord's day. We keep no saint's days. We keep the Lord's day. It is almost

the only day that some Catholics do not keep religiously! They are so busy with their saint's days, that they quite overlook the day which "the Lord hath made."

It strikes me that in giving this notice, the priests should have used an easier word than panegyric. I wonder how many of our Irish brethren know what it means. But "ignorance is the mother of devotion," you know, is one of their maxims. What multitudes of them said, on the 17th of March, "blessed St. Patrick." Probably many more than said “Hallowed be thy name." And every day how much more respect is paid among them to the mother than to the Son! It is as clear as demonstration can make any thing, that the Catholic religion is idolatrous. Men may say that it is a very uncharitable remark. But if one will dare to say it is an untrue remark, I am ready to meet him. Let us inquire first, what is truth. Then we will come to the question, what is charity. And we shall find that charity is something which (6 rejoices in the truth."

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46. Gen. Lafayette not at Rest.

A few days since I observed the following notice, taken from the Charleston Roman Catholic Miscellany: "There will be an office and high mass in the Cathedral on Monday, 30th inst. (June,) for the repose of the soul of General Lafayette." Also the

following, taken from the Catholic Herald: “A solemn high mass will be sung on Tuesday next, the 29th inst. (July,) at 10 o'clock, at the church of the Holy Trinity, corner of Sixth and Spruce, for the repose of the soul of the late Gen. Lafayette." The General died, it will be remembered, on the 20th of May. I did not know that he had been heard from since, any more than the rest of the dead. But the Charleston and Philadelphia editors seem to have had accounts of him up to as late a date as the 29th of July. Forty days after his death, according to the one account, and sixty-nine days according to the other, his soul was not at rest; and they give notice that measures are about to be taken to procure its repose. I don't know where they got it. They do not say through what channel the intelligence came. They are very positive, however, in regard to the fact. I have often been surprised at the confidence with which Catholics make assertions, implying a knowledge of the condition of souls beyond the grave. One would suppose they had a faculty, peculiar to themselves, of seeing into the invisible world. With what positiveness they speak of this one and that other as saints in glory, and even pray to them as such. I have often thought that many of the prayers of Catholics might be lost from the circumstance of the persons to whom they are addressed not being in heaven.

We Protestants do not lose any prayer in that way. We do not pray to any being who we are not certain is in heaven. We speak with positiveness of the future condition of characters and classes of men-the righteous and the wicked-believers and unbelievers. The Bible does that. But we do not, we dare not

speak of the condition of individuals with the same confidence; and especially dare we not say of this or that person that has died, that his soul is not at rest. We think it better to be silent concerning the spirit that has returned to God who gave it, and wait for the great day to disclose the decision of the eternal mind on its case, and that especially if the person seemed to die in impenitence. We would not usurp the place and prerogative of judgment. What Protestant, even though belonging to the class of Calvinists, as some of us do, would intimate that the soul of such a man as Lafayette is not at rest?

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But the Catholics are not so reserved. tend to know not only who are saints in glory, but what souls are suffering in the fire and restlessness of purgatory. They can tell you the names of the persons. They have printed in two of their papers, at least, that the good Lafayette, as our countrymen are wont to speak of him, has not gone to rest. His body rests; but his soul, they tell us, has as yet found no repose. It has not obtained admittance into that place where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." The General lived a long time where the wicked cease not from troubling; and much annoyance received he from them, in the course of his patriotic and useful life; and many trials and fatigues he underwent for liberty and the rights of man. Now it seems to me the Catholics take a great deal on them, when they say that his soul is still subject to the annoyances and disquiet which were his lot on earth. Yet they do say so. They appoint a day, a good while after his death, to sing high mass for the repose of his soul. Of course they must believe that

up to that day his soul is not in repose, else why seek its repose? If the person who inserted these notices were living in the papal dominions, or under the influence of Prince Metternich, or the ex-king Charles, I should not wonder at their proclaiming his soul not at rest, for Lafayette was never a favorite at Rome, Vienna, or in the court of Charles X. He loved liberty too well for that. But that American Catholics, and, if the reader will not smile at the incongruity of the terms to each other, republican Catholics, should assert such a thing of him, I am a little surprised. I almost wonder that the people do not resent it as an insult to the old general. If a Protestant minister should say from the pulpit, or through the press, that Lafayette is not at rest, his church and his person would be hardly safe. But the Catholics do it with impunity. And let them. All the penalty I would have them suffer, is the contempt of every intelligent mind.

But why do the Catholics suppose that Lafayette is not at rest? Is it because none are at rest when they die? Is this their doctrine? A comfortable religion to be sure! According to this, how is it "gain to die ?" Who would be "willing rather to be absent from the body?" Or how can it be said, "O death where is thy sting?" since here it is, and sting enough. But he who wrote, Phil. 1, and 1 Cor. 15, and 2 Cor. 5, was not a Catholic. Or do they conclude Lafayette to be not at rest, because only saints find repose in death, and he was no saint? I wish all the saints of the church of Rome had been as good men as Lafayette. They have canonized worse men than he. I have never inquired curiously into the devotional character of the