erogatives of God. Her spirit is no less cruel and despotic now than
when she crushed out human liberty, and slew the saints of the Most High.

The papacy is just what prophecy declared that she would be, the apostasy
of the latter times.(1005) It is a part of her policy to assume the
character which will best accomplish her purpose; but beneath the variable
appearance of the chameleon, she conceals the invariable venom of the
serpent. "Faith ought not to be kept with heretics, nor persons suspected
of heresy,"(1006) she declares. Shall this power, whose record for a
thousand years is written in the blood of the saints, be now acknowledged
as a part of the church of Christ?

It is not without reason that the claim has been put forth in Protestant
countries, that Catholicism differs less widely from Protestantism than in
former times. There has been a change; but the change is not in the
papacy. Catholicism indeed resembles much of the Protestantism that now
exists; because Protestantism has so greatly degenerated since the days of
the Reformers.

As the Protestant churches have been seeking the favor of the world, false
charity has blinded their eyes. They do not see but that it is right to
believe good of all evil; and as the inevitable result, they will finally
believe evil of all good. Instead of standing in defense of the faith once
delivered to the saints, they are now, as it were, apologizing to Rome for
their uncharitable opinion of her, begging pardon for their bigotry.

A large class, even of those who look upon Romanism with no favor,
apprehend little danger from her power and influence. Many urge that the
intellectual and moral darkness prevailing during the Middle Ages favored
the spread of her dogmas, superstitions, and oppression, and that the
greater intelligence of modern times, the general diffusion of knowledge,
and the increasing liberality in matters of religion, forbid a revival of
intolerance and tyranny. The very thought that such a state of things will
exist in this enlightened age is ridiculed. It is true that great light,
intellectual, moral, and religious, is shining upon this generation. In
the open pages of God's holy word, light from heaven has been shed upon
the world. But it should be remembered that the greater the light
bestowed, the greater the darkness of those who pervert or reject it.

A prayerful study of the Bible would show Protestants the real character
of the papacy, and wou