ries, but to that drawn up and promulgated by the councils of the church.

Again permit me to direct your attention to another authority of high respectability: which every Catholic reveres, and whose statements of our tenets are, in every respect, conformable to the unanimous belief of all instructed members of the church.

Drs. Challoner and Gother are two venerable names in the records of Catholicism: under their sanction and supervision, a small book was published, to which I before alluded, entitled "The Papist Misrepresented and Represented:" in that book I find the following anathema: "Cursed is he that believes the saints in heaven to be his redeemers, that prays to them as such, or that gives God's honour to them, or to any other creature.'

To this anathema, I most cordially subscribe, and so will you, and every consistent Christian. Nor will I, or you, or any other Christian, hesitate a moment to say "amen to this one: "Cursed is every goddess worshipper, that believes the B. Virgin Mary to be any more than a creature, that worships her, or puts his trust in her more than in God; that believes her above her son, or that she can in any thing command him.”

Judge now, whether the invocation of saints is idolatrous; and whether I should be condemned for vindicating its propriety.

And yet I know, it will be said,
Repeated, urged, insisted on,
That rites idolatrous are paid
To saints, by every genuine son
Of Popery!

That Mary, like some goddess old,
Some Juno glittering on her car,
Can o'er her Son dominion hold
And hurl his thunderbolts afar
O'er land and sea.

That the deluded papist leaves
The altar of the sovereign Lord,
And making her his goddess, weaves
His chaplets at her shrine-adored,
(Oh! profanation!)

In place of Him, the eternal One,

Who claims the homage of mankind:

And heedless of the only Son

To saints and Mary is confined
His adoration!

This is not the most elegant poetry, but perhaps a ludicrous strophe or two will occasionally tend to vary the monotony of a grave controversial correspondence. Perhaps there is no subject which presents fewer attractions to the young mind than that of controversy. Even Moore's work, "Travels of an Irish gentleman in search of Religion," is left on the shelf untouched and unread, by thousands who devour his Llalah Rookh, and feast on his Melodies. The Hind and Panther of Dryden, which contains as much good poetry as any

other of his productions, finds very few admirers; and had he written nothing else, he would have been, long since, buried in oblivion; or had that poem been the offspring of some modern Catholic, it would have been regarded as unworthy a liberal and poetical mind. And yet it is the effusion of Dryden.

LETTER XVII.

I this day heard the doleful news of the death of our dear and promising young friend Oscar The letter communicating this intelligence, now lies on my table deeply sealed with black, and stained with the tears of her who wrote it. It informs me that his brother is actually at awaiting the arrival in port of the ship which brings to his mother's arms the remains of her darling! oh what an amiable youth has been taken from us!-what a generous, high-minded, religious member of society has fallen! and how sad is the reflection, that, after an absence of so long a time, when on the point of finishing his education in Europe, and about to return to his native land, he was attacked by a mortal disease, and, ere yet the shores of Europe had disappeared, he died on the sea!

Oh never breathed upon this earth

A nobler, gentler, spirit:

I knew him, knew his native worth,
His virtue, and his merit.

His features manly and refined,
His person elegant and tall,
His manners graceful, and his mind
Pure and ethereal-

Upon the distant shores of France,
Afar from those he loved so dearly,
He sought in science to advance
And to improve in virtue yearly.

At length approached the welcome day,
When all his anxious studies o'er,
He was again to bend his way
Back to his native shore.

The sea was lovely, through the foam
The gallant ship in triumph sped;
As though exulting towards her home
To bear this boy-she bore him dead.

Yes, scarcely had the misty peaks

Of Europe's mountains shrunk away,

Than death sat on his pallid cheeks

And closed his eyes for ever to the day!

The sea breeze has sung his requiem, on the trackless ocean, and the mermaids have wept for the early and premature fate of poor Oscar! While, we can have no doubt, bright angels have borne away his immortal spirit to the regions of the good and the pious. Oh! may not he, that loving son, brother, friend, in the bosom of his God, pour forth his prayers for those who are left bewailing behind him! Where is the feeling heart that could doubt it! Where the bosom that would not throb to think that there is in heaven one

spirit that will ever interest itself for an exile on earth. And if he can pray for me, what impropriety can there be in my invoking him? Will not his prayers avail me? Does not St. James declare that "the prayers of the righteous avail much." He makes no distinction between those of a righteous man on earth, or in heaven. The proposition is general and explicit: "the prayers of the righteous avail much."

Gentle spirit, that hast departed from the comely frame which now lies in the stream, look down from the celestial spheres to which thou hast flown, upon thy friend! Mingle thy orisons with those of the myriads of spirits which surround the throne of the most High, and pour forth the odours of their prayers to the Lamb who was slain for us. Pray for me, that I may pass in safety through the infinite perils which beset my path in this valley of wo.

Will you not join in this supplication? Oh how consoling it is to the feeling heart to sigh out its aspirations to those who are in heaven!

LETTER XVIII.

St. Paul was in the habit of recommending himself to the prayers of the faithful. In his Epistle to the Romans, fifteenth chapter and thirtieth verse, he writes thus: I beseech you, therefore, brethren, through our