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The Protestant Beacon,

ENCROACHMENTS OF THE PAPISTS.
(By our London Correspondent.)

To those who mark seriously, as every
Christian man should, the present state
of affairs, the continued aggression of
the Romanists must be very apparent.
New chapels, more priests, fresh per-
verts, falsely called converts, we find on
every side. In the army, in the work-
house, in the jail, the insidious Jesuit
confessor steals, and seeks to steal.
Power is the god of these men, they
worship the World, they compass sea
and land to make one proselyte; they
are as busy as Satan, and their end is
the same like him, they destroy men's
souls.

They have made great strides with the poor, the ignorant, and the untaught, of whom there are too many in our city. We speak not alone of those untaught in letters or in literature; but their advance has been especially with those untaught in the Protestant faith. We assert a fact when we say, that the majority of perverts to the accursed* faith of Rome, has consisted, and does and will consist, of those who are ignorant of the first principles of religion; who have never been frequenters of church or chapel: who have been loose and foolish, and who have therefore easily fallen a prey to these, who go about seeking whom they may devour. The activity of these wretched men does not end here. To revolutionize society, one must begin at the base. To overturn a pyramid, one must introduce an explosive force in the underground chambers of the pile. To overthrow faith the devil will plant his perilous lies deep in the human heart. So with these Jesuits; "It is a policy old as society itself to begin with the poor, when a general effect on society is intended. The leaders of the French revolution taught the poor to cry 'Bread

* Accursed-We use this word advisedly. That faith which devotes, as much as it can devote, men's souls to perdition, must, by any Christian man, be held accursed.

or blood;' and the Romish church seeks to enlist the sympathy of the poor against the imaginary wrongs inflicted upon Catholic paupers. That we do not misjudge, let the Romish party themselves give evidence. In a criticism on the report of the Irish Synod it says:Who after all are the people most interested? Those who come nearest the want and oppression-the poor. Cannot they be taught to make themselves troublesome? Yes, very troublesome, to their task-masters. A multitude of poor may become an arm of strength. Cannot every child be withdrawn at once and simultaneously from the obnoxious system ?' If they can do better for Roman Catholic children than Protestants can, by all means let them withdraw them, not only from Irish schools, but from English workhouses; but so long as Protestant ratepayers subscribe for the support of pauper children, they will expect to have some sort of control over the ministrations of religion amongst them."+

We may continue to quote from the excellent article, because the information therein given will make Protestants more alert than they have been. "Sir John Romilly has placed the most precious of our national documents in the State Paper Office-those embodying the records of Jesuitical treason antecedent to and during the reign of Elizabethin the hands of one of the most zealous Jesuits of the present day, Mr. Turnbull, to afford him an opportunity of extinguishing, if he pleases, the entire mass of evidence against the political propagandists and traitors of the sixteenth century. Last session it was attempted by Sir W. Somerville to pass a bill to amend the Roman Catholic Relief Act, so as to open to Roman Catholics the offices of Lord High Chancellor, Lord Keeper, and Lord Commis

See an excellent article, "The New Crusade," in the City Press, Oct. 15, 1859.

sioner of the Great Seal in Ireland, and the bill was only withdrawn on account of the near approach of the sessional prorogation."

Now, it is the plain duty of all classes of Protestants to unite and to oppose the advance of Romanism; for, so surely as that gains head, the prosperity, the position of England is lost. God will desert us if we are untrue to His faith. He has deserted France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland. Look on the map of Europe, and just put your finger on the Papistical countries, and mark what their state and condition are. If France, drunkenly exultant in her despotism, seems now in the ascendant, still let us remember that she is bankrupt, miserable, torn with faction, and only kept together by a despot. Let us also recollect that her population is decreasing day by day. Her deaths exceed her births.

It will be with France as it was with Spain. When the Spanish Armada was preparing to overthrow Protestantism, Spain boasted of almost forty millions of inhabitants; she has now only fifteen millions. Heaven has stricken her in her first-born, as it smote the Egyptians. Look at Ireland; though there now, thank God, prosperity begins to dawn, within our own times that unhappy country has lost upwards of two millions of inhabitants, one-fourth of the whole. Left under the dominion of Papacy, the logical deduction is, that these countries would have become, like the deserted Palmyra, Thebes, or Memphis, or other once populous cities, howling wildernesses, residences for the toad, the bat, the wolf, and the serpent.

On the other hand, let us remember

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what God has done for us. We had barely ten millions when the Armada came; we have now nearly thirty millions of souls in these islands. Besides this we have peopled America, India, Australia, New Zealand, and other islands of the South; Gibraltar, Malta, and the islands in the Mediterranean. We have left millions of our sons' hones on the soil of the foreigner as we fought against aggression. We have centupled our wealth; we have seen our children grow from ten millions to ten times ten millions; and have spread the Bible over all the world. Do not these facts prove that God is on our side? If so, who shall be against us?

Up then, let us still be doing. The activity of the Papist is the last wriggle of the dying eel, the expiring spring of the serpent. In Ireland Romanists are crying out on their priests, and, under the influence of the revivals, turning to Jesus Christ. The Pope has fled from Rome. The Italians have many of them, the best at least, signified their hatred of the Papal tyranny, their wish to escape from the temporal power of the Pope. The most powerful pen in France has given Papacy a deadly wound; the very school-boy sneers at the fat, lazy priest, or ridicules the hireling bishop. The Germans, alas, are given up to Rationalism, but even in Vienna Papacy is weak. Let us be up then, and stirring. Defeated in her stronghold Rome seeks a footing here; we must resist her to the death; she is the accursed woman in scarlet; her cup is full of abominations. The Lord is on our side; let us resist the first approaches of Roman tyranny and mysticism, and she will flee us.

Reviews.

perseverance we ever met with.

Recollections of an old 52nd Man. By The Croston Milliner and her Missionary
Capt. JOHN DOBBS (late 52nd Light | Box. Chester: T. Catherall.
Infantry.) Waterford: T. S. Harvey: ONE of the most singularly-striking
Most interesting Recollections," well specimens of successful self-denial and
worth a perusal.
Suggestive Hints on Parochial Machinery.
By the Rev. CHARLES KEMBLE, M.A.,
Rector of Bath. London: David
Batten, Clapham..
INVALUABLE.

The Preacher; the last Nine Sermons
preached by the late Mr. A. TRIGGS.
London: W. H. Collingridge.
A PRECIOUS relic of a great man.

Time, and the End of Time. Religious Tract and Book Society. COMPILED, with alterations and additions, from a work of the Rev. JOHN Fox. First printed in the year 1674. A treatise upon the all-important "duty, so called, of " redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

Dublin: in its political aspect of tyranny, priestly rule, and democracy, in its religious features of idolatry, popery, and infidelity in mutual conflict, but finally to combine against constitutional freedom and pure Christianity, leading to the final fulfilment of this dispensation, shown in a brief review of the progress of Revelation, the growth of Wickedness, the Signs of the Times, and the coming crisis of the World."

The Brighton Pulpit. Brighton: C. E. Verrall.

SERMONS by various Ministers reported by the publisher himself, and published every Saturday. Where truth is so rare, it is well to have such works, issued as they are at so reasonable a price. The Family Treasury of Sunday Reading. London: Thos. Nelson and Sons. THIS work is edited by the Rev. AnDREW CAMERON (formerly Editor of "The Christian Treasury "). It is admirably got up, contains an immense variety, and is well worthy its title as a "family treasury of Sunday reading." The Shipwrecked Mariner. London: George Morrish, 24, Warwick Lane. PUBLISHED quarterly, in connexion with the "Shipwrecked Mariners' Society." An excellent journal by an excellent society.

Pictorial Hand-book of London.

Lon

don: Routledge and Co. THE cheapest crown's worth we ever remember to have seen; upwards of 900 pages of neat letter-press, with an almost endless number of beautifullyexecuted wood-cuts and an excellent map, for the small sum of five shillings! Footprints of a Faithful Shepherd: a Memoir of the Rev. Godfrey Massy, B.A. By the Rev. DAWSON MASSY, M.A., Rector and Vicar of Killeshin. London: Seeley and Co.

A MORE precious volume could scarcely be placed in the hands of young people especially, than that now before us. Eminent Men and Popular Books. Lon

don: Routledge and Co. THIS is a reprint from The Times. The same idea carried out more simply, would be calculated to stimulate the

young.

The Conflict of the Nations impending.

London: Seeley and Co.

A PAMPHLET deserving the most attentive perusal, as setting forth "the struggle

The Book of Canticles. London: Rivington's.

A CONCISE Comment upon Solomon's Song, published in parallel columns, with the English version of the sacred text. A Selection of Psalms and Hymns arranged for the Public Services of the Church of England. By the Rev. CHARLES KEMBLE, M.A., Rector of Bath. One hundred and eightieth Thousand. Clapham: David Batten. THE cream of our hymn-books, judiciously selected and admirably arranged. It delights us to think that at this time, when the Tractarians are publishing hymn-books in the cheapest and most popular form, such an immense issue of this excellent selection should be in use in the Church of England. This is a telling fact, when coupled with another equally grateful, namely, that its circulation is daily extending, and that there is a great variety of a like character likewise adopted in the Establishment.

The Soldier Spiritualized; or, National compared with Spiritual Warfare. London Partridge and Co. WHEN ministering to a full Church of soldiers, as we did some years ago, and visiting the barracks and military hospitals, we would have given much for such a book as this. To the soldier, or those in any way connected with them, it will be a great boon. To it is prefixed "The eventful life of the Author, the late Mr. JOHN MASON, formerly a Non-Commissioned Officer in the 84th Regiment of Foot, then for five years a Police Officer in the London Force, and subsequently for thirtytwo years and a half Governor of Petworth Gaol and House of Correction." These facts of themselves will stamp the book with a peculiar interest.

THE GOSPEL MAGAZINE.

"Comfort ye, comfort ye, my People, saith your God."

"Endeavouring to Keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace." "Jesus Christ, the same Yesterday, and To-day, and for Ever. Whom to know is Life

Eternal."

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"Then took he Him up in his arms, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."-LUKE ii. 28-30.

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BELOVED, the last month of '59 has arrived, and once more we take up our pen to write you our monthly letter. We know of no more congenial motto than that just quoted. It is glorious and glowing language. It is just that which personally we desire may pervade our own soul, and which we pray our God may possess your souls also. It is in sweet keeping with the recollection of being NEAR HOME," about which we wrote you last month. That thought, you will remember, we intimated was calculated to cause us, under God, to walk well and to talk well. As "strangers and pilgrims here-which, if we belong to the Lord, we verily are, and forcibly reminded, moreover, day by day, that "this is not our rest "what can be so soulelevating, what so heart-cheering, as the recollection, "Well, suppose I am the subject of sorrows, and trials, and temptations, and difficulties, and aches, and pains, and I know not what, yet withal' I'm NEAR HOME;' I walk and I talk upon the very borders of Canaan; and, if so be my Father and my Guide saw fit, He would in one moment grasp me by the hand, and with one word from His own gracious lips, bid me step across the narrow line that separates me from my heavenly home, my everlasting and all-glorious inheritance."

Beloved, bear with a simple illustration that comes to one's mind at the moment of writing. Some of our readers may recollect that there is on the line of railway, between Rochester and London, one place where the line runs through a tunnel originally cut for the canal, and there, for some distance in that tunnel, runs the rail and the canal side by side. Well, now, the dark tunnel is not very congenial at any time, and especially as some of the railway authorities are rather sparing of their oil, as far as lighting up the carriages are concerned; but then to have, in addition to the darkness, and the rumbling and noise of the tunnel, the consciousness that there is, side by side with you, a canal, and that, if so be anything went wrong with the rail, into it you must be plunged, is not, to say the least, very pleasant or agreeable. But, beloved, spiritualize the thought, and just for one moment consider, that though, as a traveller towards the celestial city, your route runs through, as it were, every species of difficulty and danger-rocky passes, huge mountains, yawning abysses, and here and there a dark, dreary tunnel, yet, side by side with the latter, runs, though unseen-the river of death, shall we

call it ?-oh, no! rather would we say the narrow, shallow streamlet of the Jordan. Moreover, though you see not your way, and may know something of fluttering of heart as you travel on through this dark and dubious course, in one moment you may emerge from darkness, and, as the most magnificent scenery is bursting upon your view, the train comes to a stand, and your Father meets you, to hand you over that narrow streamlet, of which the consciousness of its being near had given you previously so much uneasiness. Yes, how different would be those waters beneath the bright rays of the sun, and how different your feelings in stepping over, to what they had been if called to plunge into them in the darkness. Beloved, the idea is very suggestive, and might be worked out with advantage; but we pass on to our subject, leaving you, at your leisure, and more particularly in connexion with railway travelling, to follow out the thought.

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Reader, in regard to one statement made with reference to Simeon, we need scarcely pause to say, that the only ground upon which he could be indeed "just" or devout" was as he stood in Christ, and derived life and virtue and salvation from that Almighty One, for a glimpse of whose person, as identified with humanity-as becoming bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh-he had so long and so ardently waited. Let us never overlook this all-important fact. Every particle of purity is derived from Jesus and from Him alone. He it is-and He alone" who is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Every believer, sooner or later, led by God the Holy Ghost into a discovery of his own utter vileness, destitution, and misery as a lost and undone son of Adam, is led by the self-same Teacher into an apprehension of Christ as the Lord his righteousness; and such sinner, under the promptings of the Holy Ghost, adopts the language of the Psalmist in his approaches to the throne of grace, "I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only."

Moreover, beloved, in proportion as such sinner is enabled to look off from himself simply to Jesus, and in a sense to forget all that he is and all that he has done, as a sinner, in that very proportion will he enjoy a stayedness of mind and comfort of heart. In himself he never will be-he never can be better. "The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots." All fleshly efforts to attain to a higher standing-to be more pure, and, in a human sense, to be a better man-will be in vain. This is only setting up in opposition to Christ, instead of submitting to Him. It is only going contrary to God's salvation, rather than falling in with that salvation. Christ, and Christ alone, is the remedy for all diseases, the antidote for all ailments, the supply for all deficiencies; and never, never, never, is God the Father so well pleased, as when a poor, bankrupt, lost, and undone sinner goes to Him in the name, and simply and exclusively pleading the merits of the blood and righteousness of His dear Son. 'Tis the sweetest music in Jehovah's ears. 'Tis more melodious far than the praises of ten thousand angels. A sinner supplicating mercy for Jesu's sake is the most delightsome note the Father can hear. Christ is the Man whom God delighteth to honour. "His name is above every name," and the Father's joy is unbounded when he sees a soul "made willing in the day of His power," coming for salvation in the name of Jesus, and under the constraining power and gracious leading of the Holy Ghost.

Oh, poor sinner, be it thine to think of this, and never for a moment to stay poring over thy sins, or parleying with the tempter as to their number

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