of temporal things. But Blasphemy possesses none of these motives, it cannot defend itself like so many other crimes with the same apparent satisfaction; its only end is to insult God. In every other sin is to be found the frailty of man; in Blasphemy we meet only with the malice of the devil.

Of such a nature is the heinousness of this sin, it insults God, directly, personally; it is consequently the greatest of sins.

We must not then be astonished if all law, human and divine, after what we have said, thunder forth the most awful anathemas against Blasphemy.

The book of Leviticus decreed him to be guilty of death, who blasphemed the Name of God. St. Paul excommunicated Hymenæus and Alexander for this crime.

The emperor Justinian decreed a law which condemned blasphemers to death. In France, a law of Louis le Débonnaire, ordered blasphemers to be put to death by the highest legal authority. Philip Augustus, another king of France, revived this law. St. Louis, as we all know, although he did not inflict death, severely punished the blasphemer. These laws were a little inodified, but never abolished, and history tell us of a decree of the parliament of Paris, in 1523, which ordered a blasphemer to be ignominiously led through the streets of the city, and to be afterwards burned alive.

This legislation has entirely disappeared from the French code. (Not so, however, in England,*

*By one of the laws of Kineth (A. D. 855.) the blasphemer was sentenced to lose his tongue. "Qui Dei Nomen blasphemiâ læserit; ei linguam abscendite." Spelman, A. D. 1658. Short (Hist. of Ch. of England, p. 471.) says, "swearing

for we believe blasphemers, if informed against, may now be fined before a magistrate.) We are certainly far from regretting that excess of rigour, but should it not aid us in understanding the greatness of the crime we commit when we utter an imprecation?

Human laws may fall into disuse and be abolished, but (and let us meditate thereon) the laws of divine justice are unalterable. If earthly judges allow the majesty of God to be insulted with impunity, He will avenge Himself, and in a more terrible manner. He has in store for the blasphemer an eternity, where he will suffer with the devils who has urged him to insult God. Unhappy man! who will then, in spite of himself, hate and curse an infinitely amiable God for ever, whom he would not, while on earth, bless and love.

God does not punish Blasphemy only in the other life, but here below He does not allow it to go unavenged. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, had presumed to say to Israel, "your God cannot deliver you out of my hands;" and the angel of the Lord, as a punishment for this Blasphemy, smote 185,000 men of the army of Assyria; Sennacherib, being conquered, fled and died a little while after, assassinated by his children.

was subject to a fine, and the entertaining blasphemous and execrable opinions was punishable by imprisonment, banishment, and death." few lines after the words above quoted, Dr. Short acknowledges the vast increase from the testimony of the assembly of divines, at Westminster, of this sin in the kingdom. Is not then Blasphemy one of the fruits of the Reformation? were not Sir J. Oldcastle, Wycliffe, and their sons in the gospel of satan, Cranmer, Henry VIII. &c. &c., blasphemers of the holy name of God? (Trans.)

Nicanor, one of Antiochus's officers, raised his sacrilegious hand against the temple of the Lord, swearing that he would shortly destroy it, and build another in honour of a false divinity. He marched against the people of God feeling sure of victory; but the hand of the Lord supported the Israelites, the army of Nicanor was cut to pieces, and he himself lost his life in that engagement.

To these facts might be joined many others which would equally prove that God often punishes blasphemers here below; and are we then deceived in saying that so many christians who groan under the yoke of adversity, who, in spite of all their efforts, see their affairs deteriorate, who are prematurely deprived of their children, and who are in all their plans thwarted by a thousand unforeseen circumstances; are we then deceived, we ask, in saying that these Christians should frequently attribute their misfortunes to the custom of Blasphemy, which they do not try to correct, either in themselves or those over whom they have authority? We ought not by any means to make this a general rule; all oppressed by the frowns of adversity are not blasphemers, and all blasphemers are not oppressed; but we cannot often prevent ourselves from acknowledging, in the misfortunes of some christians, the finger of an insulted God.

And what he does in punishing individuals, will he not also do to punish nations, where blasphemy has become an universal crime, and there is no law in existence to repress so culpable a custom? We are far, very far from wishing to inspire unpleasant thoughts; but may not the miseries which are at the present day weighing so heavily on France be considered as a chastisement for her daily blasphemy? And if the holy name of God continues to be thus blasphemed, oh! what

will become of our country?* Without speaking, then, of the physical chastisements with which God may punish us, by famine, inundations, and a thousand others. Alas! (as we have just seen,) the loss of Faith generally succeeds blasphemy,

*We would here observe, that what the compiler of these Prayers says of his country may be applied with equal force to poor unfortunate England, less guilty however, inasmuch as she possesses not the Faith of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, but that of devils. Should our Protestant readers think us too severe, we would fain refer them to the state of the North of England in general, and inquire what Catholic country has ever been reduced to so miserable a state. We have ourselves been repeatedly told by adults, that Jesus Christ was the son of Adam, and that Adam was the Devil!! We shudder while penning such Blasphemy! but we would, in order to save ourselves a task at which our blood runs cold, refer our Protestant friends, and especially those who speak of Rome and her exertions in such unseemly terms, to various reports issued by the PoorLaw Commissioners, &c., as also to Lord John Manners' Plea for National Holidays. Well may we exclaim, with a Puseyite periodical, " Attend, then, all ye who delight in May meetings, and who give your unsparing subscriptions to cultivate the swamps of the Niger, and to introduce the Gospel to the shores of the Yellow Sea, and learn what worse than heathen darkness is mantling over your own doors; ye who pity poor Africans," have you no sympathy for those whose veins carry your own blood, and who are, in a nearer sense, men and brethren? Learn what ghastly shapes of misery and vice are stalking unobserved, and we trust in mercy, unknown about your very thresholds; ye who ungrudgingly gave--and it was a righteous purpose!-twenty

and what would become of a people without Faith? We shall in a short time, perhaps, see the bands of society dissolve, authority, quite powerless, crushed under the feet of rebellion,

millions to annihilate a state of physical slavery which, perhaps God sanctioned, and, it may be, might sanctify, remember that there is a darker slavery of the spirit, which has debased many millions of your own countrymen, here in boastful privileged England, to a condition infinitely below that of the beast who perishes-which is daily consigning body and soul to hell-the sweet smile of innocent childhood, the maidenly proprieties of girlhood, the decent dignity of womanhood, those holy graces of the sex, which, ever since He abhorred not the Virgin's womb, it has been the especial dignity of the gospel to exalt and purify; learn, we say, that these things are perishing from among us, and that Heathenism, the very darkest and dullest, is a condition infinitely higher and more blessed than Protestant England, with all its arts and arms—with all its Bibles-with all its schools and churches-with all its hospitals and charitable societies-with all its colonies and missions, now exhibits. If even Pagan piety shrink alarmed at the ghastly recollections of a time when a people could no longer support its own vices and their remedies, how shall we tremble at the awful future of the results of our social sins, and of our wilful blindness to duties which lie at our own homes?— See Christian Remembrancer, Vol. v. 678-79. Such is the description of Protestant England portrayed by one who, for aught we know, is a minister of her State-paid Establishment. Ifthen England, and who can doubt it, is reduced to such a state of degradation, let us then, as Englishmen, receive the warning now given to our continental ally, and in proportion as we see the faith among us revive, let us also aid hand and heart in join ing this Association of Reparation.