tioning the Spanish missions among the natives of California, which had been no less successful.

As I have wished, throughout this lengthened discourse, to contrast, as much as possible, the fruits obtained by the missionaries of different communions on the same spot, and as I, perhaps, may have appeared to speak with more than usual severity of the conduct of the American missionaries in the South Sea Islands, I will conclude my narrative with a brief account of the progress made by the Catholic religion there. I have had occasion to speak of the persecutions endured by our brethren in China, and other countries, from the hands of Pagans, but here we have bonds and sufferings inflicted by the Protestant missionary rulers of those unfortunate countries.

A recent traveller mentions an interview which he had with a native princess of one of these islands, wherein he asked her upon what grounds she had become a Christian. Her reply was, "Because Mr. Bingham, who can read and write so well, tells me that it is the best religion; and because I see the English and Americans, who are Christians, are superior to us;" but, she added, that it was only an experiment, and if it did not answer, they would return to their old worship.*

To these countries, in the year 1826, three Catholic missionaries were sent, and commenced their work, by opening an oratory, in which there was a representation of our blessed Saviour, crucified. The natives naturally came, and asked what this signified, and the missionaries took occasion to explain the mystery of the redemption; for it was impossible, without such a representation, to convey to the untutored and simple savages, the history of our Saviour's passion. The consequence was, that they soon began to have persons under instruction. But, after two or three years, they were banished from the island by the power of the American missionaries, and took refuge in California. In 1833, the Catholics were summoned before these authorities, and ordered to attend the Protestant worship. On their refusal, they were condemned to hard labour on the public roads. A task was apportioned to them; and after that had been executed, they were again summoned, and asked if they would frequent the Protestant service. On their once more declining, they were allotted another task. This was repeated until the fourth time; when some of them demurred on

* Kotzebue, "Narrative of a Second Voyage round the Globe," vol. ii.

this account, that hitherto they had been allowed to work in bodies, entirely composed of Catholics, whereas now they were ordered to be mixed with convicts, and men of the worst character, condemned for every sort of crime, the lowest and worst refuse of society. The Catholics refused to obey on this ground, and begged to be allowed to work alone. The order, however, was peremptorily urged; and not only so, but further command was given, to separate the wives from their husbands, and make them work in different parts of the island. They consulted their catechist, the only person whom they had to advise them, if they should obey. He assured them that there could be no sin in working in such company, if commanded by their ruler, on account of religion, whereas it would be sinful to disobey his orders. They took his words, literally, and, as the sentence had only been pronounced by a commissary, insisted upon hearing it from the chief. Force was resorted to, the men and women were separated, and attempts were made to put them in irons. They, however, prevailed in their demand to be taken before the chief; but, on their way, the English consul rescued them, and secured them in his house from the persecution of the Protestants. A letter of thanks was written to him by the missionaries from their exile.

Here, then, is the persecution of Catholic converts by the ministers of a Protestant religion, and a system of penal infliction pursued against those who would not abandon our religion; a system carried to such an extent, that a female of royal blood was for a time terrified from embracing it, by the threat of being sentenced to public hard labour. Here, as everywhere else, the Catholics persevered in their faith; but, what shall we say, of the oft repeated boast, that Protestantism ever abhors religious persecution, and only Catholicity is of an intolerant and cruel spirit?

In April, 1833, the king published a decree, whereby all were left at liberty to neglect or attend the Protestant Churches.* The moment the decree was passed, the churches became descrted and empty; and the islanders rushed madly to their wonted sports, which had been forbidden, while the Catholics did not lose a single convert, nor did any of them frequent the games without permission of their catechists. The return of the missionaries was expected,

* Kotzebue tells us that he himself saw the poor natives driven into the church by blows with a stick.

and a bishop, Mgr. Rouchoux, has been appointed to the mission.*

Now, let any person contrast the conduct of the two churches; the one endured persecution and yet remained faithful; the other was supported by the law, and the moment compulsory attendance was taken off, was abandoned by its proselytes. Such a comparison, joined to the many similar examples which I have given this evening, furnishes us with matter of serious reflection, and must, I am sure, be a subject of great consolation and encouragement to those who profess the true faith of Christ.

I cannot conceive a more delightful study than the peculiar manner in which Christianity can adapt itself to every possible state and condition of mankind. Every other religious system has been adapted for one peculiar climate or character. No ingenuity, no talent, could ever have induced the wild Huron to embrace the amphibious and abstemious religion of the Ganges, to spend half his day, and hope for his sanctification, in long and frequent ablutions in his freezing lakes, or to abstain from animal food, and subsist on vegetables, in a climate where stern nature would have forbidden such a course. The soft and luxurious inhabitants of Thibet, could never have transplanted into their perfumed groves, the gloomy incantations and sanguinary divinities of the Scandinavian forests, or listened with delight to the sagas, and tales of blood and glory, which nerved the heart of the Sea-king, amidst the storms of the north. Nor could he have ever learnt and practised, in his rude climate, the religions of the east, with their light pagodas, their gaudy paintings, their varied perfumes, and their effeminating morals. The worship of Egypt sprung from the soil, and must have perished, if transplanted beyond the reach of the Nile's inundation; that of Greece, with its poetical mythology, its muses, its Dryads, and its entire Olympus, could only be the creed of a nation which could produce Anacreon and Homer, Phidias and Apelles. Nay, even the Jewish dispensation bears manifest signs that its divine author did not intend it for a permanent and universal establishment.— But Christianity alone is the religion of every clime and of every race. From pole to pole, from China to Peru, we find it practised and cherished by innumerable varieties of the great human family, whether we consider their constitutions, their mental capacities, their civil habits, their political institutions, nay, their very physiognomy and complexion.

*"Ami de la religion," 17 July, 1834.

But, let us be just to ourselves; it is only the Catholic religion which possesses this beautiful faculty of suiting every character, national and individual, by becoming all to all, of uniting by a common link, the most discordant elements, and fashioning the most dissimilar dispositions, after the same model of virtue, without effacing the lines of national peculiarity. Lutherism was for years forced upon the docile natives of Ceylon, and engendered the most horrible of religions chimeras, the worship of Christ united to the service of devils!— The Independents have laboured long and zealously, for the conversion of the teachable and uncorrupted natives of the Sandwich and Society Islands, and they have perfectly succeeded in ruining their industrious habits, exposing the country to external aggression and internal dissension, and disgusting all who originally supported them.

But, on the other hand, the Catholic religion seems to have a grace and an efficacy peculiar to itself, which allows it to take hold on every variety of disposition and situation. It seems to work like that latent virtue of some springs, which slowly removes every frail and fading particle of the flower or bough that is immersed in them, converts them into a solid and durable material, and yet preserves every vein and every line, which gave them individuality in their perishable condition. Its action is independent of civilization: it may precede it, and then it is its harbinger: it may follow it, and then it becomes its corrective. You have seen it alone raise the savage, even in its wilds, to the admiration and acceptance of the most sublime and most incomprehensible mysteries; you have beheld it in India, nerving its followers alone against the demoralizing influence of the country.

And if he who planteth, and he who watereth is nothing, but the Lord alone giveth the increase, and if this constant and enduring success can be but the result of a divine blessing, shall not we conclude, that the kingdom of God hath been hereby brought unto so many nations, and that the system here pursued is that whereon his blessing and promise of eternal assistance was pronounced. Let us then rejoice that he has so given us a consoling evidence of his assistance to his church; and as it has been evinced in one part of her commission, that of successfully teaching all nations, so has it been no less secured upon the other, that of teaching all things which he hath commandeth until the end of time,

LECTURE VIII.

ON THE SUPREMACY OF THE POPE.

*Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; because flesh and blood had not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, it shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."

Matt. xvi. 17, 18, 19.

THE line of demonstration, which has perhaps been somewhat interrupted by the two last discourses, has, I trust, my brethren, led you to form a conception of the Church of Christ conformable to the imagery and the institutions recorded in God's written word. It has been presented to you in both, under the form of a sacred kingdom, wherein all the parts are cemented and bound firmly together, in unity of belief and practice, resulting from a common principle of faith, under an authority constituted by God. But the application of this discovery has been necessarily postponed; for we have but vaguely determined the existence of this authority in the Church of Christ, without defining where, how, or by whom, it has to be exercised.

The tendency of every institution in the church, so far as we have examined, to produce and cherish this religious unity, will lead us naturally to suppose, that the authority which principally secures it, must likewise be convergent, in its exercise, towards the same attribute. We saw how, in the old law, the authority constituted to each, narrowed in successive steps, till it was concentrated in one man and his line ;* we saw how all the figures of the prophets lead us to expect a form of government justly symbolized as a monarchy, and although God is to be its ruler, and the Son of

†P. 98. See also for the fuller development of this idea, a Sermon on the Kingdom of Christ, in "Two Sermons," &c. Lond. 1832.