diamonds, and point lace, and her gold headed stick, tapping the stairs along with her high heels. O Jamie, I am so afraid of the old lady, and I wish the day was well over. But is'nt Sarah growing tall and beautiful, and she is so quick at learning, Jamie, as quick as you are, and I am glad that Sarah's birthday is to be kept, because I am sure as papa's eldest daughter it ought to be; are not you Jamie?

But Jamie only remarked, that Sarah was certainly growing very tall, quite womanly, and bore a wonderful resemblance, his papa said, to the Colville family.

Bridget sighed softly, and was silent for a while, then she suddenly brightened up and changed the subject, saying; "Is'nt it kind of dear Mark, Jamie, he is taming a squirrel for me, he caught it in the woods, and it was young enough to tame, but it has bit him and hurt his finger, though it is such a darling little thing. And I am to have it when there is no fear of its biting me, and it sits up and cracks nuts most engagingly. I shall be so fond of it:Sarah says, she hates squirrels and all such creatures, and I am never to bring it near her; so I shall keep it in my own room, and it shall nestle in my bosom, and keep me warm in winter. I never yet had a pet of my very own, and I shall be so proud of this."

Jamie smiled, and told her about the natural habits of these pretty creatures, and how the sight of one always wafted him in fancy to wood land solitudes, and from thence the transition of thought was speedy to One, who suffers not a sparrow to fall to the ground unnoticed. Jamie's thoughts tended heavenwards, and to Him. Who inhabiteth Eternity; and there was no pretence or affectation of sanctity, in alluding frequently to his best Friend, for all His works do magnify Him.

Mr. Irwin had invited Mr. and Mrs. Northcote to the Hall on Sarah's birthday, but they declined the invitation, as it was known to be strictly a general meeting of the Colville race and their numerous connections. The

day arrived. First, in rank, and attended by her daughters, came the aged Mrs. Latymer; to her all heads bent, all vied in doing her honour, and like a potent queen amid her subjects, the withered woman gazed haughtily around her, gave forth her oracular sayings, and

brooked neither argument or contradictions. Nurse Bestie attired in gala robes, attended the dame to the state chamber on her arrival at Irwin. No symptoms of fatigue, or disordered attire, were permitted to be visible by Mrs. Latymer. With haughty step she swept into the chamber, and from thence issued, passing down the corridor, to the head of the grand staircase. Carriages were arriving, setting down gay guests, and the buzz of many voices ascended to where the old lady stood, with Bestie in the back ground, and Miss Tamasina and Miss Rosalia by her side. The inferior waiting damsels, scared, kept aloof, for wierd and yellow looked the woman of so many summers and winters, and she shook her stick, and tapped with her heels on the dark stairs, as slowly she began to descend. "Now babies," she uttered in a shrill loud key, turning to her daughters, "here am I going down this staircase for the hundredth nay, the thousandth time may be; I've ever protested against the absurd tales about it, and about the curse tacked on to it, and I can only say for my part, that I think the yew tree which shaded the graves of a parcel of good-for-nothing lazy monks, is far too honoured, instead of desecrated, in being made into a staircase for a Colville to tread on. Consecrated forsooth! I'd consecrate all the good timber I could find, were my young days to come over again, out of burial ground or Papist ruins, by flooring my dwelling with it all, and treading on it, as I do now; and it is honoured, I repeat, ¦ honoured by a Protestant lady touching the superstitious remnants of a wicked age." And in unnatural excitement, Mrs. Latymer scowled on Bestie and the trembling handmaids, and again shaking her staff and tapping her heels, called imperatively on her babies to come, and attend her grand entree into the drawing room of Irwin, There Sarah was the star, but cold and glittering; alas! too selfpossessed for her tender years.

C. A. M. W.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

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several Popes of their day; partly in the connexion of the feudal system with the doctrines of religion, by which the idea of a sovereignty in one Bishop was put forward with the subjection of others, in the same relation as feudal kings to one great Emperor; and partly in the separation of the East from the West, and in the struggles for truth of doctrine against heresy, wherein the confessed priority by reason of place, learning, and ability was ever conceded to the See of Rome. But it will now be shown that neither one of these reasons, or even all taken together, could have been sufficient, had not another been added, as the foundation upon which all the rest were built up and received their strength. That other was, the unscrupulous use of forged documents, alterations of primitive usages, perversion of words of Holy Scripture, and a constant suppression of such facts, writings, canons of general councils, and other such monuments of antiquity as would, if left untouched, have seemed to make against the claims which were so unsparingly advocated.

Some few instances to shew the general spirit of falsification, which prevailed in the Papal history shall now be adduced.

S. Gregory the Great, (A.D. 590) of whom we have already made honorable mention, (See vol. III., p. 338) was without doubt entirely ignorant of the doctrine of Papal Supremacy. Up to his time that doctrine was unheard of. He made no pretensions to it. His government of the Church was regulated solely by the ancient and apostolical canons. As an instance of this, in his letter to John, Patriarch of Constantinople, he says; "Certainly, Peter, the first of the Apostles, was a member of the holy and universal Church; and Paul, Andrew, John; what else are they than heads of a single people, and yet all are members of the Church under one head, CHRIST." And then in continuation he quotes the well-known passage from S. Matt. xviii. "If he refuse to hear thee, tell it to the Church, and if he shall refuse to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." It is evident then that S. Gregory understood these words of CHRIST as applying to S. Peter, as well as to the other Apostles. It is to Peter, he says, as well as to the rest. "If he refuse to hear thee, tell it

to the Church." The Church then was above S. Peter. Hence the ancient fathers, in speaking of the authority of S. Peter, and the keys which were given to him, always call them "The keys of the Church," not the "keys of S. Peter." They were given to S. Peter for the Church as a representative of the Church, and in subservience to the Church. So S. Augustine speaking of Councils as the voice of the Church, describes them as above the voice of any one Bishop. "Let us suppose that the Bishops who have given sentence at Rome were not good judges; still a plenary council of the Universal Church remained to annul their sentence."

In reference to this let us take an instance of the falsification of documents to which allusion has been made. While the Church was in her integrity, as scen in the writings of Gregory, there was no trouble. The missals faithfully recorded the words of holy Scripture when they had need to quote from them in the Gospels of the day. So accordingly, in the Gospel which is appointed for the mass on the Tuesday after the third Sunday in Lentthe words of holy Scripture are rightly given: "At that time, JESUS looking upon His disciples, said to Simon Peter, 'If thy brother sin against thee, go and tell him kis fault, &c. &c... If he will not hear thee tell it to the Church.'" The words clearly show that Simon Peter is equally with the other disciples to tell it to the Church, i.e., to submit to the Church all such matters as might be in doubt or controversy. But when we turn to the modern missals, those which are read in the Church at the present day, we find that the words are changed, and they stand thus: "Jesus said to His DISCIPLES." No mention is made of Simon Peter, but only the dis ciples. A great number of the ancient missals have been compared and examined by Antonio Pereira, a Priest of the Spanish Church, and in commenting on this remarkable alteration, he says:—

"Let us now consider what it was which could have induced Clement VIII. or Paul V. thus to alter in the Roman missal a gospel which had been so universally read in the Church for so many years... · · ... Cardinal Bellarmine and his colleagues, perceiving that this Gospel read in this manner generally stood in the way of the pretended monarchy of Rome, suggested to the Pontiff the alteration of the words; since in their latter reading, the subordination of Peter to the tribunal of the Church was not so clear and evident."

"

Here then is an instance of the spirit by which real truth is kept out of sight lest it hinder the advancement of a favorite theory. Let us take another.

The missals and breviaries of the present day give the Collect for the feast of S. Peter's Chair at Rome, January 18th, in these words:

"O GOD, Who conferring the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, didst deliver to Thy blessed Apostle Peter the sacerdotal power of binding and loosing, grant that by the help of his intercession we may be delivered from the chain of our sins. Who livest," &c., &c.

Now it was Pope Leo who composed this prayer about the year 850, but not in these words. The modern prayer of the present Missals does not agree with the original one. Pereira states that he compared numbers of the ancient Breviaries and Missals, and always found the word “animas” (souls) to occur after the words "binding and loosing," and he then says:

"If I am asked why this word 'animas' is erased from all the modern Missals and Breviaries, my answer is plain, because by saying the binding and loosing of souls' it would be implied that the power of the keys extended only to the soul, and the tribunal of conscience; and was therefore merely spiritual. But the word 'souls' being withdrawn, room was given to extend the power of the keys to the bodies and the temporalities of men, which is that indirect power over the estates of kings and secular princes, which Bellarmine and the other Jesuits so earnestly aim at giving to the Pope.”*

It will be well to mention a third instance. There is a book called "Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum." It is that from which the Popes on their election make their profession of faith. In it there occurs a denunciation of all heretics. Among others, in the former ages, was recited the name of Honorius, Pope of Rome, (A.D. 626) guilty of heresy. (See Vol. 1II. p. 310.) Bossuet tells us that this book was used with the name of Honorius occurring in it up to the time of Leo the Second. That heretical Roman Bishop was up to that time denounced, and his memory execrated as one out of communion with the Church. Such was the rule of the Church; it was universally done, for they did not anticipate the doctrine that was afterwards to arise of the infallibility of the Papal Chair.

Tentativa Theol. p. 139.

....

I, N. elect of the Church of N. from henceforth will be faithful and obedient to S. Peter the Apostle, and to the Roman Church, and to our lord N. Pope, and to his successors canonically coming in. .. [Then after other matters] The counsel which they shall trust me withal, by themselves, their messengers, or letters, I will not knowingly reveal to any, to their prejudice; I will help them to defend and keep the Roman Papacy, AND THE ROYALTIES OF S. PETER, saving my order, against all men, &c."

The Latin words for Royalties of S. Peter, are "Regalia Sancti Petri," upon which Barrow in his treatise on the Popes' Supremacy, makes this remark.

"In perusing this oath we may remark that the clauses in a different character are not in the more ancient oath extant in the Gregorian decretals; by which it appears how much the Pope doth more and more enlarge his power and straiten the bands of subjection to him. And it is very remarkable that the new oath hath changed these words, REGULAS SANCTORUM PATRUM (rules of the holy fathers,) into REGALIA SANCTI PETRI,) Royalties of S. Peter.)"

The former oath pledges the Bishop elect to keep the rules of the holy Fathers. It was a pledge to observe all that was ancient, true, and good, by the rules or canons of antiquity. The omission of these rules, and the substitution of the

Bossuet. Def. Eccl. Gall. Lib. viii. c. 26.
L 2

"royalties of S. Peter" in their place; and the close similarity of the two phrases as to the letters which form the Latin words, is very significant.*

Such are specimens gathered here and there of the insidious manner in which the doctrine of the Papal Supremacy gradually worked its way; they are specimens of matters little in themselves, but still manifesting the spirit of dishonesty which scrupled not at any means to gain the end in view.

But we must now approach matters of graver moment. These are but harmless and insignificant, and although displaying a spirit of guile, yet nothing to be spoken of in comparison with what is to follow.

First, let us speak of the practice of appeals, how they grew up in the Church and how they tended to form the idea of Papal Supremacy; and next let us speak of what is generally understood in ecclesiastical history under the expression “the False Decretals.”

It is quite certain that the original government of the Church was Patriarchal. Each province with its Patriarch, and each metropolis with its Metropolitan, and each diocese with its Bishop, together with their Synods and Councils attached to each of them were governed by and within themselves. This is clearly shown by reference to the Apostolical Canons, and above all to the General Council of Nicæa. This has been explained and need not therefore be repeated here. The reader must refer to Vol. III. p. 289. Appeals to Rome to settle controversies, or hear causes, were never heard of before the Council of Nicæa, and at that Council it was expressly laid down that the "ancient customs were to prevail."

But subsequent to the Council of Nicæa, A.D. 325, fresh troubles arose in the Church about Eusebius, and another Council was held at Sardica, A.D., 347. It was intended to be a General Council, but it failed of this owing to the departure of the Oriental Bishops, who retired to a separate Council at Philippopolis. Nevertheless the Council passed several Canons, of which the third, fourth, and seventh, speak of the propriety of an appeal under certain circumstances to the Bishop of Rome. It was agreed in the third Canon

* See Barrow. Treatise on the Popes' Supremacy, p. 553. Folio edition.

that "for the honor of S. Peter's memory it should be ordered that if a Bishop condemned in his own province, maintained his innocence, his judges might write to the Bishop of Rome, in order that he might determine whether the Bishop's cause required a fresh hearing, and that if he, and the judges whom he should nominate, agreed in determining that a new trial was requisite, it should be entered upon at once, but if not, the original sentence should stand good;" and in the seventh it is said, that "if the Bishop of Rome should declare it necessary to have a new trial, it should be lawful for him either to delegate the cause to the Bishops bordering on the diocese of the accused Bishop, or to send legates to take cognizance of the question." The effect of these Canons at first was simply this; a Canonical authority was given to Rome over all other sees as a court of reference; but still there was no power to evoke or cite causes out of their own Province to Rome. It was only a cession of honor to the Apostolic See to appoint new judges when they were required. And thus much was clearly proved by it; that prior to that Council, no right had existed in Rome of such a nature as the Canon now conferred. It is obvious that if it had existed either by divine right or ancient custom, there had been no need of the Canon. The very making of the Canon shews that reference of appeals was then for the first time heard of. But the Council of Sardica, as before observed, failed in being a General Council, whereas Nicæa, A.D. 325, which had preceded it, was always recognized as such. All would have been very plain and simple if no unjust Supremacy had been demanded on the part of Rome. But such was not the case. The Canon of Sardica offered too specious a foundation upon which to work for the assumption of general appeals to the Pope, and it became the policy of the Roman Bishops to quote this Canon, not as the Canon of Sardica, but as that of Nicæa, and so to gain for it a more plenary authority. Zosimus, Pope of Rome in the year 417, acted upon this Canon in the case of the Bishopric of Arles, and states that the Popes inherit from 8. Peter a divine authority equal to that of Peter, as derived from the power which our