man that rejected their testimony in any other case but this, would require the care of his friends, being fit only for a lunatic asylum.

I once saw a woman receiving the Eucharist. She held out her tongue, as usual, but it happened that the wafer caught fast on a large projesting tooth, on which it remained suspended for a considerable time, to the great horror of the Priest, whose ejaculations of "miserable woman!" "unhappy wretch!" filled our minds with alarm for the fate of the poor communicant. The good Father was afraid that JESUS CHRIST, supposed to be then and there dangling on the top of a dirty tooth, should fall down on the boards, and that his glorified person would thereby be dishonoured. So he devoutly came to the rescue; and taking his helpless god gently between the forefinger and thumb, safely lodged him on the woman's tongue, that he might go the way of all food!

My dear Friend, I do not wish to hurt your feelings by turning your faith into ridicule, although it is very difficult to treat this subject with gravity; and one seems not only justified in taking up the weapons of satire where men are inaccessible to reason, but almost impelled to the disagreeable task by a sense of duty, in order, if possible, to arouse our beloved country

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men from their fatal lethargy. But I trust you, at least, are accessible to reason.

Let us attend

then, to the following considerations.

If Transubstantiation be true, the following contradictions must be admitted :

:

1. A thing may exist without its essential attributes. Christ is divested of these in the wafer, which has neither thought, feeling, nor motion.

2. The attributes or "accidents" of a body may exist without the substance in which they naturally inhere. The Eucharist presents all

the attributes without the substance of bread and wine.

3. A body bounded in space may be in ten thousand places at the same time. Thus the human body of Christ may be on all the altars on earth at the same moment, and, also, in hundreds of millions of stomachs !

4. A part is equal to the whole. The Host when elevated by the Priest is the body of Christ; and the Council of Trent decreed (Canon 3) "That the body of Jesus Christ is entirely contained in the Sacramental Eucharist under either species; and, after separation, under every part of these species!" Hence, if one of the communicants divided the portion of the wafer given to him into a thousand parts, and

And, after all, there is Amazing infatuation! already may begin to

then swallowed them, he would have a thousand human bodies in his stomach ! And these all made out of one body! but one body of Christ! 5. That which exists be. Jesus has existed in his human nature for more than eighteen centuries, but the Priest gives him existence-forms him out of bread and wine-every time he says Mass. "The Son of God is formed in the species without creation, generation, or motion; and exists without locality, quantity, or extension."

These may serve as a specimen of the numerous contradictions which flow from this teeming fountain of absurdity and monstrosities. We are told, by Roman Catholics, that in opposing this tenet we call in question the power of God. But we do no such thing. We know that with God all things are possible that do not involve a contradiction. He cannot deny himself-cannot lie-cannot be unjust or ignorant~~ cannot cease to be in any particular place-cannot change. He can create innumerable worlds with a word, but cannot make a thing to be and not to be at the same time. He might change a mouse into an elephant; but then the elephant so formed would not be a mouse. When the rod cast from the hand of Moses (Exod. iv. 3)

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became a serpent, it was not a rod. God never required any one to believe in an exercise of his power producing a change not evident to the senses. To them, Moses in his miracles appealed, and so did our Lord himself.

But

He appeared to the disciples, "to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs," Acts i. 3. Now what were these "many infallible proofs," by which his resurrection was demonstrated to his followers? You will find them recorded in the twentyfourth chapter of Luke." And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you, they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me to have. And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet."

Now, dear Friend, mark well this passage. Jesus submitted his person to the examination. of the senses, to prove that he was really their Lord and Master. "Handle me and see."

"A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me to have." It seems, then, Jesus has flesh and bones; so your Church teaches. But flesh and bones can be handled and seen; and if, when we make the experiment in this way, we cannot find flesh and bones in the wafer, we must be excused if we affirm that it certainly is not Jesus himself. The apostles were the witnesses of what they felt, and saw, and heard; and on the testimony of their senses rests the whole superstructure of Christianity! If they be found false witnesses that is, if the senses are not to be relied on-the Church's faith is vain; she is yet in her sins.

But then we are told that Thomas was incredulous, and that a blessing is pronounced on those who believe without seeing. Yes, without but not against seeing. Thomas is not censured for not believing against the senses, but for not believing on testimony. The churches of God have ever since rested on the evidence which Thomas rejected; namely, the assertion of the apostles as to what they saw, and felt, and heard. A chosen few were selected to bear this testimony to an unbelieving world; a testimony perfectly unexceptionable, and so abundantly corroborated by a vast accumulation of other evi