he hands of the cruel emissaries of popery. England
too, has drunken deep of the "wine of the fierceness of her wrath," as
the blood of Cobham, and the ashes of the Smithfield martyrs can
testify. Ireland and Scotland, likewise, have each been made the theatre
of her atrocities. But no where has the system been exhibited in its
native unalleviated deformity, as in Spain, Portugal and their South
American dependencies. For centuries, such a system of police was
established by the _Holy Inquisitors_, that these countries resembled a
vast whispering gallery, where the slightest murmur of discontent could
be heard and punished. Such has been the effect of superstition and the
terror of the Holy Office, upon the mind, as completely to break the
pride of the Castillian noble, and make him the unresisting victim of
every mendicant friar and "hemp-sandaled monk."

Moreover, the papal system has opposed the march of civilization and
liberty throughout the world, by denouncing the circulation of the
Bible, and the general diffusion of knowledge. Turn to every land where
popery predominates, and you will find an ignorant and debased
peasantry, a profligate nobility, and a priesthood, licentious,
avaricious, domineering and cruel.

But it may be asked, is popery the same system now as in the days of
Cardinal Bonner and the "Bloody Mary." We answer yes. It is the boast of
all catholics that their church never varies, either in spirit or in
practice. For evidence of this, look at the demonstrations of her spirit
in the persecutions in the south of France, for several years after the
restoration of the Bourbons, in 1814. All have witnessed with feelings
of detestation, the recent efforts of the apostolicals in Spain and
Portugal, to crush the friends of civil and religious liberty in those
ill-fated countries. The narrative of Asaad Shidiak, clearly indicates
that the spirit of popery, has lost none of its ferocity and
bloodthirstiness since the Piedmontese war, and the Bartholomew
massacre. Where it has power, its victims are still crushed by the same
means which filled the dungeons of the inquisition, and fed the fires of
the _auto de fe_.

This is the religion, to diffuse which, strenuous efforts are now making
in this country. Already the papal church numbers more than half a
million of communicants. This number is rapidly augmenting by emigration
from catholic countries, and by the conversion of protestant children
who are pla