unutterable agonies, the excruciating torments of Purgatory? Alas! those things which you call "rites of the church" can bring me no substantial comfort. According to your own account, they can but convert a hell which is eternal into one of limited duration. The duration of Purgatory, though limited, may be vast; for you teach us to pray for the souls of our great grand-fathers, and you would take money for dead Masses to the third and fourth generation.”

And, my friend, may I not ask, what is the use of those Masses? You say that the sacrifice of the Mass is equal in value and atoning efficacy to the sacrifice on the cross-that its merit is infinite. If so, it requires only one offering of it to atone for all your sins, and not only to liberate your soul, but all that ever entered Purgatory! Must not Priests, therefore, if sincere on this point, be possessed of hearts exceedingly hard? A benevolent man would not see a beast enduring protracted agony, without seeking to relieve it. And can a Priest stand on the borders of the burning lake and behold the souls of his neighbours of his own flock, too, tossed upon the weltering surges of divine wrath? Can he listen to the groaning, and wailing, and shrieking of men, and women, and children-cries of misery, that have continued for years, and may last for

years to come? Though he could terminate all in half an hour-could translate myriads of souls from torment to glory by saying a single Mass; yet he refuses to do it till he is paid! Like the fabled Charon, he stands, unmoved by the importunity of tortured ghosts, and will not stir till he gets the ferry-money! Verily, if these gentlemen have any faith in their own system, they are the most obdurate of the sons of men!

This language may appear too severe; but I think the reasoning will prove well-founded. Why are not an equal number of Masses said for the souls of the poor as for those of the rich? Why have the former no "MINDS" set apart for their benefit? A society exists, or did exist, in Dublin, for the purpose of collecting funds to have Masses offered for the souls of those who had no surviving friends to interest the clergy on their behalf! But are their feelings so callous as to require such a stimulus? Can no sound but that of money excite in their bosoms the emotions of sympathy?

Year after year, it was my lot to listen to a Priest appealing to his congregation on behalf of the "suffering souls in Purgatory." On "all Saints' day," their woes were painted in colours so dark and dismal; the case of a recently departed father, mother, brother or child, was

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brought out and dwelt upon in terms so pathetic and soul-harrowing, that the people wept aloud. The peroration of the discourse was always an appeal to the purse; it would be barbarous to resist it; and so most of them gave their names as subscribers to the "pious list."

A misapplication of Scripture occurring on these occasions, deserves to be noticed. The souls in Purgatory are represented as exclaiming, "Miseremini mei, miseremini mei, saltem vos amici mei!" “Have pity on me—at least you, my friends, have pity on me!" Roman Catholics think that the Holy Spirit puts these plaintive words in the mouth of each tortured soul in Purgatory-not knowing that they were uttered by a living man (Job xix. 21) while suffering under bodily afflictions. In the same manner the 130th Psalm, called the De Profundis, is chaunted over the dead, although it has no reference whatever to departed souls.

When listening to the moving descriptions of Purgatorial torments given by the Priest, the question often occurred to me and others :-If the case of these souls be as bad as it is represented, and if the Mass be such a sovereign remedy for all their miseries, why is it not offered for them without money and without price? While the wailing and lamentation of immortal souls are ring

ing in the ears of the minister of peace, imploring the speedy interposition of the "dreadful sacrifice" to terminate their anguish, how can he eat, and drink, and be merry-how can his slumbers be peaceful-knowing as he does, if he be sincere, that those spirits are detained in prison, and in torment, till he receives the money! Is it not awful to think that the Lamb of God should be thus valued at so many pieces of silver; that the Saviour of mankind should be offered up or not, as suits the interest of a Priest; that the Bread of Life should be degraded into a money-making commodity; that the most tremendous of all events, the immolation of the Son of God, should be prostituted to subserve the purposes of filthy lucre! I do not wish to write strongly; but it is impossible that the mind should come in contact with this subject, without kindling with righteous indignation. But I forbear.

Before I proceed farther, however, let me entreat your attention to a single question. The fires of Purgatory, you are aware, are not intended to atone for mortal sins, but for venial offences, and also to make up for those temporal punishments that remain due after the eternal are remitted. There are merely some trivial debts to be paid, some slight stains to be washed away. Now, Roman Catholics admit that the

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If

sacrifice of Christ is of infinite value, that there are no limits to its efficacy; and they contend that the same is true in regard to the Mass. so, it will follow that one Mass is incalculably more than sufficient to redeem a soul from Purgatory. My question, then, is this: Why is there more than one Mass said for the same soul? If the departed soul has gone to hell, the offering is made in vain; if it has entered Purgatory, the first Mass should, as a matter of course, release it; and then every subsequent offering of the Son of God is "a vain oblation."

Is not, therefore, the repetition of the service a tacit confession of its weakness? Does it not betray the secret distrust of the Priest in reference to that whose saving virtue he lauds so highly; and for the application of which he presses for your money? The reasoning of the apostle Paul, on the repetition of sacrifices, is quite in point: "For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For, then, would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins," Heb. x. 1, 2.

Here the inefficiency of the Jewish sacrifices