y feet below the surface, and that all these
assertions are absolutely false, you feel indignant, and, if you have the
smallest iota of intellect left, after listening to the priestly legends,
return a considerably sounder Protestant than you went. In like manner,
history leads you to a similar conclusion as to the Roman Church.
History, with an impartial pen, tells us how the Roman heresy sprang up,
and grew, and reigned in every land. History robs Romanism of all its
terror and of all its power. We see it, with plain, unblinded eyes, to
be a heresy gradually enlarging its claims in accordance with the
increasing ambition of its prelates, and the increasing credulity of its
devotees. Gradually, as the memory of apostolic teaching and preaching
passed away, the Church of Rome, after the fall of Jerusalem, continued
to advance among the western Churches certain vague assertions of
authority. In proportion as its clergy asserted their claims, other
changes of an unscriptural character were made. First of all, the
doctrine of baptismal regeneration was asserted; then a mysterious
veneration began to attach itself to the celebration of the Lord's
Supper; the sign of the cross was held to be vital to the expulsion of
the devil; and prayers for the dead became common. A great step was
gained when the doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy was enforced; when
Gregory the Great, as the Romanists may well call him, inculcated
purgatory, and pilgrimage to holy places; instituted the Canon of the
Mass, and added splendour to the ceremonies of the Church, and claimed
the power of the keys for the successors of St. Peter. On the foundation
thus raised it was easy to base the most astounding claims; whether you
are asked to believe that the Church of Loretto flew through the air from
Syria to Italy, or, as in our time, the liquefaction of the blood of St.
Januarius, and the immaculate conception of the Virgin. After a certain
point gained, the rest is sure to follow. Give up the Bible, believe in
the priest, and the Roman heresy is the natural result.

In the Catholic Directory I find the statistics of Romanism as it exists
in London. The province of Westminster, established by his Holiness Pope
Pius IX. (Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince
of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church,--such are a few
of the titles he assumes), Sept. 29,1850, comprises the diocese of
Westminster, with t