THE HYACINTH. 197 



banding for the zealous promotion of missionary 

 labours, of which the avowed object is to put down 

 the idolatry of heathen lands ; and can they be- 

 lieve that we really consider them idolaters, while, 

 with every facility of daily intercourse, we speak 

 not a warning word to save their souls ? 



Alas for the desolation of popery, that is rapidly 

 spreading over our country ! We despise the little 

 cloud, no larger than a man's hand, nor believe 

 that ere long the heavens shall be black, and the 

 earth deluged, with the abundance of that plague 

 which we care not to arrest in its early progress. 

 Far different is the view taken by the promoters 

 of Rome's deadly apostacy : they know the value 

 of every foot of land that their multiplying temples 

 over-shadow, and of every deluded soul that they 

 ensnare with the net which is now spread in almost 

 all our English villages. The land, which is as 

 the garden of Eden before them, they will convert 

 to a howling wilderness, if the Lord revive not in 

 us somewhat of the spirit that dwelt in his confes- 

 sors of old. 



How awful are the descriptions given in the 

 word of God, of this predicted apostacy — how 

 fearful the denunciations thundered forth on its 

 upholders ! Can we read them, and not desire to 

 become instrumental in the work of delivering our 

 fellow-sinners from such a snare ? Never in the 

 annals of creation did a power so fierce, so pitiless, 



17* 



