deluded who resort to this shrine of Satan

every year, as you may learn from the pen of Æneas Macdonnell, Esq. barrister at law, agitator, &c. (See Appendix III). And, with such avidity is the fable of the bell received and credited, by these most superstitious gulls, that the man who keeps this bell gets a considerable sum of money, in the donations made by every person who ascends the mountain; and the mumming blessing pronounced upon the donors by this imp of Satan (who is termed the clerk !) is infinitely more esteemed than the blessings of the word of God.

But the manner in which they get this word penance is worthy of remark. Whenever the words "repentance," or "repent!" occur in the New Testament, they, the Romish translators, invariably change the sense of Scripture to answer their sinister ends, by substituting in their stead, "penance," and "do penance !"

In order to show this clearly to my Protestant countrymen, who, I am sure, are very loth to believe such damning truths against theirs of the Romish faith, I shall take the liberty to give the construction of the original word in the Greek, that they may judge for themselves.

It stands thus: werd voew, compounded of the two words era (meta), after, and voɛw, (noeo), to think, signifying, to think after reflection, producing as it were "a change of mind," "repentance." How, therefore, these worthies can make out, that the mental process is to be converted into a fleshly one, must remain as great an enigma to us, as that in which they prove that ›

the spiritual communion of the body and blood of Christ becomes the real Christ Jesus! the living God, manifest in the flesh!

And, in order more clearly to show that my assertion is correct, and that I may not be taxed with any unfairness in giving this sacrament of theirs any construction which does not accord with their own sentiments on the subject, I refer the reader to the following note, extracted from their Douay Bible, Dublin, 1825, on Matt. iii. 2. "Do penance," (Anglice, “repent"): "Pœnitentiam agite, TavOEITE. Which word, according to the use of the Scriptures and the holy Fathers, does not only signify repentance and amendment of life, but also punishing past sins by fasting, and such like penitential exercises!!”

Extreme Unction.

What's this? Well may you ask what is this! The Apostle James, in his Epistle (not our blessed LORD, be it observed, as they start with declaring), James, v. 15. "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him in the name of the LORD. And the And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." It is a well ascertained and indisputable fact, that in all eastern countries oil was, and is, still used as a sort of universal medicine to cure various diseases of the skin, hurts, &c.; as we also read (Mark, vi. 13; Luke, x. 34). These applications were all made in order to heal the sick, and raise him up, as St. James's own words declare. But, be it observed, in this Ro

mish Church the extreme unction is never applied except at the extreme point of death (or rather life), as the word "extreme" implies; and not for the purpose of raising the sick, but to save their souls with oil. I do not know how I can convey to my indulgent readers a fuller idea of the good effects produceable from this very comfortable sacrament than in the following celestial idea, extracted from an old Romish devotional book, entitled, "The Beehive of the Romish Church, Extreme Unction."" "Whensoever any body lies a passing, so that there is no more hope of life in him, the prieste shal anoynt him with holy oyl, blesse him with crosses, and conjure him with certaine words, and then hee can never come in hell; for all the devills will runne away from before the crosses, lyke a dog before a flyche of bacon; and, therefore,” (excellent therefore!) "must hee take up his lodging eyther in the suberbes of hell, or in purgatory, where hee shal have his house-hyre and firewood free, till such time as hee (with soul masses and pope's pardons) have gotten a plotte of ground in heaven, to builde a house thereupon of merit and good workes."

This is the sort of unction the priests deal in; aye, to this very day, in that unfortunate benighted country, Ireland: and why do I say Ireland, is not the hideous farce carried on, to the same amount, in our metropolis, in Bath, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, and every town and place where these accursed limbs of Satan, are allowed to carry on their delusive absurdities! And oh! my poor deluded fellow-men, who think that if ye die unanointed, your souls are doomed

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to endless purgatory, in what words is it possible for us to grieve and mourn your terrible delusion!

St. James desired those to whom he wrote, to call the elders of the church (not every deacon); but those who, for their piety and spirituality, had attained to apostolic faith and dignity amongst, not their fellowmen, but fellow-Christians! And he said, "Let them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the LORD; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the LORD shall raise him up, and his sins shall be forgiven him."

Now this, it must be allowed, is a very different thing from extreme unction, and which we cannot be called upon to practise, seeing that its application as a medicine confines it to those countries to which St. James addressed his epistle. Well, indeed, would it be for all of us, at all times, to frequent and desire more than we do the society and heavenly converse of spiritual men; and the more particularly when the couch of sickness is our, but too just, lot: and if the medicine were always administered with the outpourings of faithful hearts to heaven, imploring the bounteous mercy of our munificent GOD, there can be no doubt but that with such faithful devotion, HE WOULD be well pleased, and would make his blessing accompany it. This was the evident intention of St. James. Now as to its being a sacrament-if faith in Christ Jesus, our LORD'S sacrifice, acknowledged in receiving the token which he commanded, be sufficient to save our souls, I do not see what in the world we want "the holy unction” for "to heal our souls, to support us in the hour of

distress and anguish, and to prepare us for a happy passage*.*

Sometimes it happens that this "extreme unction" is made to convey to a departing creature a refinement of barbarity that is, according to their belief in its efficacy, extreme indeed: for example: A priest, near Westport, was called upon to administer the last rites of the church to a miserably poor woman in the mountains. When he arrived at the cabin, surmising from the wretchedness, which was but too apparent, that his communicant had not too much cash, and that he might have some difficulty in obtaining his five shillings (that's the price of salvation administered in this way): upon the old principle of "the bird in hand,” he demanded the money before he commenced his unholy rites. The unfortunate old woman, who was in the last stage of squalid misery, had one solitary halfcrown, the only money that, in the world, she possessed; and in reserving it, to secure the imaginary comfort of this most absurd mockery, had debarred herself those small comforts of life which, in her then condition, would have been not alone luxuries, but were indispensable.

"Half-a-crown won't do. I must have five shillings!" exclaimed this good Samaritan.

In vain did she protest that it was the only piece of money she had in the world. The "holy father" was

* See Key of Heaven, twenty-second edition. Dublin. P. 272. Prayer before Extreme Unction.