MR. FITZGERALD.-Madam, the Gospel Revelation has enabled us to know what is safe; but I find there no means of settling what is safer, in point of Religion. I know that additions may nullify Christianity; and therefore I am decidedly against all additions. St. Paul declared to the Galatians, and in them to all Christians, that a single ceremony, of divine institution, would deprive them of the blessings which they had in Christ. "Behold, I Paul say unto you, That if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing."* Taking this instance for my guide, I cannot think that additions to Scriptural Christianity are safer than that simple Christianity. I know that prayer to God through Christ is safe: but praying to God through the Saints, for any thing I know, far from being safer, may injure the effect of praying through Christ. I know that to consider Christ as the true and living image of the Father, and to worship him as such, is safe; but to have other

* Chap. v. Vers. 2.

material Images may totally or partially invalidate the benefits of having that divine image. To receive the Lord's Supper according to the institution of that ceremony, as we know it from the Gospels and the Apostle Paul, must be safe. To omit some part of it, to adore the visible elements, and all the other consequences of transubstantiation, cannot be safer, since, to say the least, the foundation of such views and practices cannot be more certain than what we find as matter of fact, in Scripture. To live under the habitual recollection that we stand between Heaven and Hell, between happiness and punishment, must be safe; to entangle ourselves in questions about Purgatory, and to encourage the notion of a middle place of punishment, into which we may venture in the hope of being speedily delivered by masses, prayers, and indulgences, cannot be safer; for the tendency of such views is to encourage vain hope and carelessness, especially among the sensual and the thoughtless.

MRS. CUSIACK.-Well, my dear Sir, I have

nothing to answer to your arguments. I believe that there can be no danger in that which is safe. I have clearly perceived your meaning, and agree with you, that that which is safe upon the original evidence of the Scriptures, must be safer than any thing supported by a less certain authority. But what is the duty of such a poor creature as myself in regard to external profession? Must I set my face against practices and views supported by so many great and learned people?

MR. FITZGERALD.-Your duty, and the duty of every disciple of Christ is to follow his example by "bearing witness to the truth."

MRS. CUSIACK.-To what truth?

MR. FITZGERALD.-To the only truth to which you can bear witness—YOUR TRUTH.

MRS. CUSIACK.-What good can such a witness do?

MR. FITZGERALD.-If every individual did honestly, and candidly bear witness to his own truth (to that, which according to our English etymology, he troweth or finds) the oppressive and widely spread tyranny of superstition, would

have already lost the greatest part of its power to afflict and degrade mankind. The great

truths which mankind possess, as their most valuable treasures, have been established by the concurrence of individual witnesses to the truth which each found in his mind. May God hasten the dawn of that day when every Christian shall candidly examine the grounds of his faith, and frankly, yet humbly, bear witness to TRUTH, as he finds it.

MISS CUSIACK.-What do you mean by humbly.

MR. FITZGERALD.-Under a sense of the individual fallibility and proneness to mistake to which every man is exposed.

CHAPTER VII.

The Abate Fantoccini.-Sketch of Christian Rome.

THE whole of our party began to feel settled and comfortable at Rome where we intended to spend a considerable time. The prospects of my own happiness extended, almost without limits, as the day approached when Rose Cusiack was to be mine. Mrs. and Captain Cusiack were very glad that, by having the marriage celebrated during our tour, all the bustle and inconvenience attending that ceremony in wealthy families at home, would be avoided.

Full of these thoughts, I felt my interest in controversy completely dying away. The splendid service at St. Peter's failed indeed to produce much impression upon me. There was a parade about every thing, and, with that parade an air of unconcern in the principal actors, which, even if my belief in the popish system had not been weakened by argument, would