ever such a contradiction?--"glory in debasement, and debasement in
glory,"--type of the misery and greatness of man? Was there ever such a
mystery, so occult are its arts, so subtile its policy, so plausible its
pretensions, so certain its shafts? How imposing the words of paternal
benediction! How grand the liturgy brought down from ages of faith! How
absorbed with beatific devotion appears to be the worshipper at its
consecrated altars! How ravishing the music and the chants of grand
ceremonials! How typical the churches and consecrated monuments of the
passion of Christ! Everywhere you see the great emblem of our
redemption,--on the loftiest pinnacle of the Mediaeval cathedral, on the
dresses of the priests, over the gorgeous altars, in the ceremony of the
Mass, in the baptismal rite, in the paintings of the side chapels;
everywhere are rites and emblems betokening maceration, grief,
sacrifice, penitence, the humiliation of humanity before the awful power
of divine Omnipotence, whose personality and moral government no
Catholic dares openly to deny.

And yet, of what crimes and abominations has not this government been,
accused? If we go back to darker ages, and accept what history records,
what wars has not this Church encouraged, what discords has she not
incited, what superstitions has she not indorsed, what pride has she not
arrogated, what cruelties has she not inflicted, what countries has she
not robbed, what hardships has she not imposed, what deceptions has she
not used, what avenues of thought has she not guarded with a flaming
sword, what truth has she not perverted, what goodness has she not
mocked and persecuted? Ah, interrogate the Albigenses, the Waldenses,
the shades of Jerome of Prague, of Huss, of Savonarola, of Cranmer, of
Coligny, of Galileo; interrogate the martyrs of the Thirty Years' War,
and those who were slain by the dragonnades of Louis XIV., those who
fell by the hand of Alva and Charles IX.; go to Smithfield, and Paris on