The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

POPERY SIMPLE MAGIC. 303Rome has a fine histrionic genius. She has eclipsed allother actors that ever appeared in the world. What is thePapacy but a mighty raelo-drama, which, according to thevein of the hour, runs out into the humours and fooleries ofcomedy, or deepens into the horrors of tragedy. All thepersons and verities of eternal truth pass in shadow beforethe spectator in Rome's scenic exhibition. She affects toplay over again the grand dx'ama, of which the universe isthe stage, and eternity the development,—redemption.Andfor what end ? That she may hide from man the reality.Her system is essentially counterfeit, and all she does ispervaded by a spirit of imposture and juggling. But insome of her rites she lays aside her usual disguise, thinenough at the best, and reveals her art to all as but a pieceof naked witchcraft. If those are not spells which she commandsher priests to operate with on certain occasions, Hecateherself never used incantation or charm. We openher missals, and find them but books of sorcery : they arefilled with recipes or spells for doing all manner of supernaturalfeats,—exorcising demons, working miracles, andinfusing new and extraordinary qualities into things animateand inanimate.if uttered by a priestShe has her cabalistic words, which,in the appropriate dress, will bind orloose men, send them to paradise or shut them up in purgatory! What is this but magic ? What is the Churchof Rome but a company of conjurors ? and what is her worshipbut a system of divination l Has she not an order ofexorcists, specially and formally ordained to the somewhatdangerous office of fighting with and overcoming hobgoblinsand devils ? Has she not her regular formulas, by which shecan change the qualities of substances, control the elementsof air, earth, and water, and compel spirits and demons todo the bidding of her priests ? Can any man of plain understandingtake this for religion ? What is her grand rite, butan incantation, which combines more than the foulness ofancient sorcery with more than the blasphemy of modernatheism I And yet do not kings, presidents, and states-