THE 
MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
New Series. 
Vou. VII.] MAY, 1829. [ No. 41. 
POPERY, AS IT WAS, AND WILL BE.—THE MASSACRE OF SAINT 
BARTHOLOMEW, 
Tue popish question is now a question no more. The question now 
is of the a and liberties of Englishmen ; how much we virtually 
have remaining this day of what we had this day month? at what 
measure the complacency of a legislature will stop, which has abandoned 
at a word the principles of the British government during a hundred 
years of unexampled success, freedom, and glory? and into what hands 
will henceforth devolve the care of that fragment of the constitution of 
1688, which in the mercy of our lords and masters has been for a while 
conceded to the nation. 
We will not despair. The word, however fitted for the times, is 
unworthy of the school in which we have learned the language of free- 
men. We may see a furious and reckless ambition lording it over the 
state ; a ready profligacy in its accomplices, a feeble and broken resist- 
ance in its adversaries ; corruption the code of the aristocracy ; time- 
serving, place-hunting, and selfishness, the principles of the gentry ; the 
multitude equally engrossed by a systematic and pampered scorn of their 
superiors, and a fierce appetite for rude indulgence of all kinds, and at 
all hazards ;—we may see contempt of the people on the lips of their 
governors, and contempt of their governors retorted from the lips of the 
ple ; solemn lawyers ridiculing the principles of human right ; proud 
soldiers scoffing at human honour ; lofty statesmen vilifying the very 
existence of truth ; and learned divines pronouncing before their asto- 
nished country that the guilty church of Rome is not idolatrous,—yet 
desperate as the whole aspect of public life is, we will not despair. And 
is we will not do, because we believe that there is a being superior to 
e vileness of man, who is not to be deluded by base hypocrisy, nor 
‘thwarted by miserable ambition ; who will send out his judgments on 
the guilty whether they are wrapped in rags or in purple, and who in 
the face of the unbeliever will vindicate the sanctity of an oath, and the 
dignity of religion. Much as the doctrine may be openly reviled by the 
Jacobin, or practically denied by the sleek hunter after the good things 
of this world, we firmly believe that there is a Gop, and it is in this 
‘Strong consciousness that we bid the virtuous, manly, and Christian 
portion of England, determine never to despair. 
M.M. New Serics—Vou. VII. No. 41. 3M 
