Without commenting much on the cafe, how appropriately thefe figures might 
reprefent the then fickly conftitution of the church, and the griefs of the Pontiff ; 
it is enough to mention that the period was arrived, when its mournful date might 
have been fo characterized; and another was faft approaching, when it funk under 
accumulation of misfortune and ruin. 
At that period when adminiffration permitted the prevailing enthufiafm, under 
fanflion of law, to violate and abolifh the epifcopal eflablifhments ; fome of the 
Catholic Clergy vented their forrows in a truly claflic page, * of which the follow- 
ing extrafil only is produced, as peculiarly connected with the fubjeft in view. 
Attend to this tale of woe, and fhed a pitying tear ; 
Our venerable parent, from maternal glory fall’n. 
Lies entomb’d amid the ruins of the ecclefiaftical pile; 
Alas ! alas ! for our bed beloved of blefied memory r 
+ In m dc lx xxv hi (lie mournfully declin’d : 
J In mdccvii, ah! me! benumd in every nerve; 
Her vital powers loft all their adive energy. 
At length depreffed by numberlefs cruelties, and worn out with woe : 
All pitying heaven ! 
She funk into the grave. 
Ye Saints and Sages, all ye children of her care! 
Pray that {he reft in peace ; 
— Or rather — That she revive again in glory! 
It mull be kept in view, that the only reafon of feleding this extrad, is on ac- 
count of the expreffive example ofperfonification which it contains. 
An additional fuppofition muft be indulged, becaufe, in its ultimate allufion, the 
cafe was real. 
Had the wifhed for reftoration of the Church to its ftate of early fplendour, provi- 
dentially taken place, and let the perfonification be continued, with luitable attributes a 
hallowed dignity and grandeur; and wefhall fee the revered guardian of the light and 
truth raifed to a throne of glory, according to the conclufive prayer of the epitaph . 
and have therein an obvious and excellent illuftration of the nature of thefe myftical 
perfonages, celebrated, lamented, fought for, and rejoiced in by the Gentile Idem- 
nities : and hence perceive with ftriking evidence, that they only exifted in the com- 
memorative fymbols of events that had occurred, or of truths that had been reveied. 
’Twas thus the more diftinguifhed epochs of facred hiftory, reprefented in the an- 
tient folemnities of religion ; and importants events that had been long celebrated' 
with all the fymbolical pomp which charafiterized the holy rites of Lgypt : wherr 
they were transferred into the Grecian States, by thofe eminent men who firft pro- 
moted religious eftablilhments there ; although for a while their primaeval moment. 
* The Latin is printed atlength in Shaw’s Eccleft. Hi ft. Moray f Aft for abolifhing Epifcopacy 
in Scotland. £ Articles of the Union eftablilhing Prelbyterianifm, &c. 
