66 



ROMANISM. 



they have never read the original 

 charter of Christianity, and been 

 made aware of the changes and 

 variations of those claiming to rep- 

 resent it. They have every human 

 motive to make the most of a relig- 

 ion which none of them, on their 

 own knowledge, and relying upon 

 themselves, can tell whether it is true 

 or false ; and they might say of it what 

 Cicero made the pontiff of old Rome 

 say of the gods, that he did not be- 

 lieve in them as a man, but did as a 

 pontiff, and as one upholding the 

 religion of his ancestors. The real 

 moral responsibility of the priests of 

 Rome would begin with the study 

 of the word of God, and tradition, 

 and history, contrasting these with 

 the doctrines and practices of Rome 

 to-day ; which they will not do, like 

 one that is afraid or ashamed to 

 look at himself in a mirror. 



As the old Pagans, surrounded by 

 all the pomp and awe of animal sac- 

 rifices, incensed, prayed and sang 

 praises to " Pan and all the gods," 

 which existed only in their imagina- 

 tions, so does human nature worship 

 its deities in various countries to- 

 day. As the Romans adored Jupi- 

 ter, and the Greeks Zeus "the 

 father of gods and men " with 

 a host of demigods, and to a great ex- 

 tent believed in God in the abstract, 

 but did not worship Him adequately, 

 or only along with a multitude of 

 beings of their own creation, so it 

 can be said of Romanists in their 

 worship of God and the saints, who 

 are too numerous to be mentioned 

 individually. They can as easily 

 believe in Christ and the Holy 

 Ghost as they believe in God and 

 the saints, or as the old Pagans 

 believed in Jupiter, or as Eastern 

 nations believe in their deities, when 

 they have been taught from infancy 

 to do so, and when it is obligatory 

 on them as a part of an inherited 

 public worship, which they could 

 not altogether corrupt or modify. 

 Among Romanists, Christ and the 

 Holy Ghost may be considered, in 



common with God and the saints, 

 as representing the deities of ancient 

 Rome, in the possession of a sodali- 

 ty of priests, or close sacerdotal cor- 

 poration, making their worship a 

 Pagan one in reality, although Chris- 

 tian in name. Here we would have 

 the major deities changed and pre- 

 sented merely as a blind to the real 

 Paganism and idolatry that make up 

 the worship, viz. : that of the Virgin 

 and the saints, and the innumera- 

 ble superstitions connected with 

 them ; Christ being seldom men- 

 tioned or thought of, but brought 

 forward on public occasions to 

 support or constitute their position 

 before the world ; and God merely 

 a kind of Jupiter whom no one 

 must trouble, but through the saints 

 deputed from one to another, till 

 the petition reaches the " greatest 

 and best,'-' " the father of gods and 

 men," of the heathen. Christ and 

 the Holy Ghost seem, in practical 

 Romanism, to be there merely be- 

 cause they were inherited, and could 

 not in the nature of things be kept 

 out ; while the Bible is a superfluity, 

 and a source of great weakness 

 when appealed to. If one had 

 entered many an old Roman temple, 

 he would have found the people, 

 with more or less sincerity, accord- 

 ing to the occasion, worshipping 

 Jupiter and some of the demigods, 

 and many with great sincerity at all 

 times. Let one enter a Roman 

 Church to-day, and he will find 

 substantially the same religion, the 

 same human nature, and the same 

 degrees of sincerity ; the saints be- 

 ing, at the very least, demigods that 

 are supposed to hear and answer 

 the prayers of millions at the same 

 moment, that is, beings existing in 

 that respect, and often in every 

 respect, only in the imaginations of 

 the worshippers. 



It is strange that Christianity, 

 which recognized the worship, in 

 all its simplicity, of God, Christ, 

 and the Holy Ghost, only, and our 

 duties to each other, should, as it 



