MR. EDITOR,

ON THE ALARMING INCREASE OF POPERY.

WOMAN is the weaker sex! Granted. Notwithstanding this their allowed weakness, yet they have had, still have, and ever will have, the most powerful influence in the most important matters of state affairs, as well as in the little insignificant chit chat of private society. Adam fell by Eve's curiosity. Plutarch relates fit is a good thing to quote old authorities, if that should be neglect ed in the sequel, whoever finds out the subjects alluded to, will reap both entertainment and instruction in the search] an observation of Agesilaus, that when Greece was esteemed the most powerful and polished nation, and called all its neighbours barbarians, he said to a friend, Greece commands the world; Sparta rules Greece; I govern Sparta; my wife rules me; and that capricious boy, she nurses, is her master.' Scripture itself proves, that John the Baptist's head was taken off to gratify a female. Virginia, a maid; Lucretia, a wife; and Cleopatra, a widow; have each of them been the cause of great events in their respective days. Antiquity alone is not the only source to supply us with instances of the influence of women in the affairs of states. Widows, especially, as being the most knowing, and most careful for their own interests, have had most influence where they have made any impression,

ward the Fourth to break through the usages of crowned heads, and recall the ambassadors he had empowered to conclude an alliance with a daughter of France? But he was not the only Potentate whom a fair and fascinating widow has bewitched. To gain their point, they have caused the laws of jealms to be broken, and having so done, what may they not do, if they give their attention to any particular object, and should they have a wily Jesuit, assisted by his whole order, to direct their conduct in the attainment of a purpose of grand political consequence? Remember well, this is not an imaginary case! Lives to the amount of half a million, and distresses even greater than the loss of life, too numerous to be counted, was the result of Louis the Fourteenth's marriage with the widow Scarron. She would not comply with the desires of the grand Monarque without the ceremony of marriage being first fully performed, though a nullity in fact, as being contrary to the laws of the realm; but such was her power over his Majesty, and such the influence of Father La Chaise, the Jesuit, over her, that this man not only married them, but acquired such an ascendency over the King through her means, that contrary to his own conscience, contrary to the interest of the kingdom, nay more, contrary to his most solemn agreement, he revoked (it is so called to soften down the crime of perjury) the Edict of Nantz. Thus the sprightly

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and almost forlorn Daubigne, herself a Huegonot, while a Creole, after ber arrival in France became converted to the Catholic faith, and under the controul of her confessor found means to expel from their native habitations many thousand happy families, and to destroy by fire and sword at least half a million of persons who could not escape from their country, nor give up their consciences to what they considered a religion contrary to the Divine Institutions, handed down to us from God himself as the rule for our conduct. Louis the Fourteenth, though he was so flattered by his own nation for his magnificence in constructing numerous edifices, grand national works, and undertaking projects to aggrandize France at the expence of her neighbours, was not in reality the great man, he aspired to be thought. One of his generals, a Prince of the House of Sedan, was a much greater man than his Majesty; but he too, could not help yielding up his principles to the influence of one of that sex, which the Lords of the Creation think themselves warranted to call weak; and a pair of bright eyes blasted one leaf in the laurels which bound the brows of the great Turenne ;-His Monarch's most earnest wish, the offer of the highest office in his power to bestow, (to be Constable of France, a place not to be held by a Huegonot) the most strenuous efforts of the most accute genius in France, the all-powerful and persuasive Bossuet, to whose eloquence he frequently, even by desire of the King, attended with ears open to conviction, had the arguments been decisive;-these united efforts could not make the Marshal waver in his religion; but what his own ambition, (to be the Constable of France) the impressive reasonings of the persuasive Bossuet; the united wishes of the grandest court in Christendom; the most anxious desire of bis Sovereign could not effect, a miss in her teens accomplished; and the hero of sixty, to obtain this fair one's hand, prior to his leading her to the altar, was first obliged by her command, in that sacred spot, to renounce his own religion and become a Catholic.-Hercules himself fell prostrate at the feet of Omphale!! To relate all the instances of the victories, which this weak sex has had over the stronger one, would fill volumes larger than all Mr. Urban's Magazines.

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Let us now draw some practical conclusions from these advanced premises. In my own day I knew a Nobleman, married to a French lady, entrusted with the command of the forces in the sister kingdom. Lord indulged her with the choice of her own confessor; he was a Jesuit, and Irishman. He possessed all the acumen of his order, and pleasing manners of his country. If her Ladyship was informed of any state transaction, of any local occurrence which it was his wish to penetrate or the interest of his religion required a knowledge of,-could her Ladyship conceal it from her ghostly father? Certainly not! even if it was her intention to do so, his subtilty would baffle the endeavour. Was any object to be obtained, in his Lordship's gift or procurement, what more powerful advocate than her Ladyship; especially if urged thereto by the solicitation of a man, who had the guidance of her conscience; to whom she was obliged to divulge her most secret thoughts, and submit her conduct to any penance he might think proper to enjoin?

In one of the late rebellions in Ireland, how many Croppies escaped the gallows by their obtaining passes from the Marquis Cornwallis, which now enable several of them again to renew their atrocities, emboldened by the facility which they before experienced in sheltering themselves from the rigor of the law? It is well known that these passes, which could scarcely be obtained through any other channel, had been granted with complacency to the all-powerful and irresistable solicitation of female influence. What is it beauty, delicacy, sensibility, and gentle persuasion cannot atchieve? Female charms have softened the savagest beast of the wildest desert! The soldier's rugged heart, and the severity of Roman discipline yielded to the witchery of the widow of Ephesus !

Ambition, avarice, sensuality, are passions, which if given way to, lead their unhappy victim to the perpetration of any deed that cau accomplish the end proposed. No system can be thought of so likely to fulfil the aim of one possessed of such desires, AS POPERY; its machinations are dreadfully potent; its agents exquisitely cunning! Auricular confession, proffered salvation, severe penance, nay, the inquisition itself,

are means of tempting the weak, of terrifying the boldest! Where Popery reigns, what can resist its intrigues; what strength repel its compulsive violence? What is there so precious as our souls? If a divine can persuade us, that the Pope has the power to bind on earth and loose in heaven; that he can release from purgatory, a prison of his own invention (for there is no such place alluded to or named in the Holy Scriptures)-if these ideas can once be impressed on the human mind, every other dogma can easily be inculcated; no absurdity, which their tenets contain, will dare to be examined. What Roman Catholic would dare deny, that the office of the priesthood is Holy? That their priests possess true divinity, at least in a very great degree? What father could refuse his son to adopt that calling, if his inclination led him thereto? To devote ourselves to God is most praiseworthy. What mother can withstand the persuasions of a daughter, who desires to pass her life in so laudable an employment? The pomps and vanities of this lower world can. not be put in competition with the glories of that above! Thus prepared, thus instructed, thus excited, is it to be wondered at, that monks and nuns are found in great number wherever this system is admitted? Celibacy is a malter fixed on as the cer tain basis to enable these two denominations of persons to pursue their divine purposes. What could support society, or continue the propagation of our species, if all men became priests and all maids took the veil ?the human race must necessarily soon cease to exist. But Providence has implanted passions in the breasts of both sexes, which place in defiance these doctrines of Papal introduction. So satisfied are the Swiss nation of their priests possessing passions similar to other men, that every curate is compelled to keep a concubine in the Roman Catholic cantons, to preserve from pollution the wives and daughters of the inhabitants. To know the crimes of priests, to hear of the modes pursued to conceal them, would make modesty blush and humanity shudder. Read the History of Paraguay; or in a concise work, cast an eye over The adventures of a Guinea. The confessions of Don Antonia Gavin, a Jesuit, who published a Master

Key to Popery, will clearly convince. the most sceptical person, that priests merit the name of Father, full as much by their fleshly deeds as their ghostly instructions. If their tenets and their practices could be confined within certain limits, their customs might be tolerated; but when they make every exertion to extend both; when we know by cruel experience the dreadful consequences which have ensued from their having power to enforce a compliance with their erroneous superstitions ;-when we see the revival of an order in our own kingdom formerly put down in kingdoms entirely Catholic;-when we know the persecuting spirit of their religion ;when we see the persevering assiduity which has so increased their numbers;

when we see a long string of young Jesuits parade our streets in double files, similarly dressed, their avoca tions avowed and their demeanor externally unexceptionable;-when we see nunneries sprouting up in every province, where our own daughters may be seduced to enter, from weakness practised on by undermining cunning, or the example of an esteemed friend;-when we see schools erected, universally through the empire to perpetuate Popish principles; it behoves all Protestants to pause, before they in any way contribute, either by their countenance or their purses, to support what is called by them, liberality of sentiment and freedom from bigotry; but which, really, is laying a mine for the destruction of the Protestant religion.

WHIGS AND ANTI-WHIGS; Or Evil and Good Contrasted.

CONTINUED.

No. VII.

"A Whig Trimmer, or a Jack of all Sides, is a Will-with-a-wisp, a man of no principle either of honour or conscience, any further than it squares with his safety and profit. You may reckon him among the common enemies of the government and mankind. His countenance is like a prognostication in an almanack: when his eyes sparkle with joy, you must look upon the dancing of those spirits, like the play of porpoises before a tempest, and Ung

when all is well there, 'tis a foreboding of troubles and storms in the public; as a cloud on his forehead (on the other side) is an infallible sign of fair weather in the state; for that which makes the one fat, makes the other lean, and common disasters are not only his discourse, but his food and nourishment. And the reason of so much contrariety is this: that monarchy and a popular sovereignty, law and license, order and confusion, can never stand together. He talks aloud of grievances, abuses, and mismanagements, and makes it his business to enlarge upon them. He talks of dangers, and fills people's heads with frightful stories of them, and at the same instant is so put to't for want of proof that he is fain at least to magnify, if not to create them, and supply the defect of matter, with imposture and invention. There's not a whimsical story passes the town, that is capable of being improved into a scandal or illusion, but it's presently furnished up, for the service of the malcontented; and when there wants matter of fact for a ground to work upon, 'tis his care to supply it with fancy or suggestion. He has a way of political masquerading, under a coat that fits all factions and opinions, goes round like a mill-horse in the same track of hearing, telling, and dividing, and under pretence of trimming, at last removes, and with his own weight overturns the wherry. The gentleman that has attempted to give him a fairer character, has forgot what he is, and represents him what he should be. He inclines too much to a party to carry himself uprightly, and approves the sense of the law, no longer than it asserts his innocence; and thinks them no longer jewels, than they hang at his ears, or adorn his fingers. Though monarchy, when the administration falls into wise and good hands, is approved by all judicious men, as the best form of government, he is no longer in love with it, than it keeps him in humour with a profitable employment, and when that is taken away, yet by trimming when he held his office, he has secured his interest in a party, and then sets up for a Jacobite, or a Republican; either for another king, or no king at all, as he sees the beam turning to his own advantage. He is for a liberty What is inconsistent with his allegiance, a. ad calls every government arbitrary,

where he cannot act the tyrant over all below him, and checkmate alf above him. He is not so displeased with any thing, as our own constitution, where monarchy and liberty are so happily reconciled, that they friendlily embrace each other. He is angry that Liberty of Conscience is established by law, because he has lost an opportunity of quarrelling about it; for he had rather want his right, than not gratify his spleen, and humour his perverseness. He is a friend to zeal, and an enemy to knowledge, and cheats himself by a false ostentation of the power of Godliness, without being in the form of it. He thinks himself of the true religion, because he has been of all he could hear of, and having pinned himself to the principles of neutrality, had rather undergo the Laodicean fate, than enjoy the reward of fidelity and perseverance. The noise of fire at midnight does not so much affright him, as a discourse of accommodation and comprehension; for to be all of a piece would spoil his market, in being for, and against every thing, by way of debtor and creditor. He always shifts for the warm side of the hedge, and rather than run any risk in his body or fortune, he'll leave his Prince, his country, his father, or friend in the lurch, to save but the worth of a cockle shell. In your prosperity, over a bottle of wine, and a dish of your meat, he'll load you with caresses and civilities; but if you come to have the wind and tide in your teeth, and the vogue of the town against you, he'll be one of the first shall desert you, in stark love and kindness, till you have struggled your way through the difficulty, and then he's again your most obedient humble servant."