now vents its harmless
thunders much in the same way as the thunders of the Vatican, or the
recent fulmination of the Archbishop of Paris against the author of the
Wandering Jew; that is to say, with a great deal of noise, but without
much damnifying any one, as the public soon formed a true judgment of M.
Sue and of the tendency of his works.

On the other hand, how horrible it is, and what a fearful view of frail
human nature is opened for a searching mind to observe that a man, who
professes to have abandoned the pleasures of existence, to have broken
through the very first law of nature, to have separated himself from his
kind, and to have assumed perfection and infallibility, the attributes
of his Creator, devoting the altar at which he serves to the wicked
purposes of arraying man against man, and of embruing the hands held up
before him at prayer in the blood of his fellow-mortals!

But such is the inevitable tendency of the system of "I am better than
thou," whether it be practised by a Catholic priest of the hedge-school,
by a fanatic bawler about new light, or by a fierce and uncompromising
churchman. Faith, hope, and charity, are alike misinterpreted and
misunderstood. Faith with these consists in blind or hypocritical
devotion to their peculiar opinions and dogmas; hope is limited to the
narrowest circle of ideas; and charity, Divine charity, exists not; for
even the very relics, the mouldering bones of the defunct, are not
allowed to rest side by side; and as to those differing in the slightest
degree from them, to them charity extends not, however pious, however
sincere, or however excellent they may be.

The people of England are very little aware how widely Roman Catholicism
extends in the United States and in Canada. From accurate returns, it
has been ascertained that in the United States there were last year
1,500,000, with 21 bishops, 675 churches, 592 mission stations, and 572
priests otherwise employed in teaching and travelling; 22 colleges or
ecclesiastical establishments, 23 literary institutions, 53 female
schools or convents for instruction, 84 charitable hospitals and
institutions, and 220 young students, preparing for the ministry; whilst
we learn, from the Annals of the Propaganda, that 1,130,000 francs were
appropriated, in May 1845, to the missions of America, or about L47,000
annually, of which the share for the United States, including Texas, was
771,164 francs, or about L32,000 in ro