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

—424 INFLUENCE OF POPERY ON THE INDIVIDUAL MAN.forhe cannot bo reflective, persevering, and self-denied inone thing, and slothful, self-indulgent, and devoid of thoughtin another. Need we wonder at the vast disparity betweenPapists and Protestants generally ? When called to competewith another man in the fieldof science or of industry, thePapist cannot, at the mere bidding of his will, call up thosefaculties so necessary to success, which the evil genius of hisreligion has so fatally cramped.Faith is one of the master faculties of the soul. It is indispensableto strength of purpose, grandeur of aim, andthat indomitable persevering effort which guides to success.But faith Popery extinguishes as systematically as Christianitycherishes it. She hides from view the grand objectsof faith. For a Saviour in the heavens, who can be seenonly by faith, she substitutes a saviour on the altar. Forthe blessings of the Spirit, to be obtained by faith, she substitutesgrace in the sacrament. Heaven at last is to be obtained,not by faith on the divine promise, but by the mysticvirtue of a sacrament operating as a charm. Thus Poperyrobs faitli of all her functions. That noble power whichdescries glory from afar, and which bears the soul on unfalteringwing across the mighty void, to that distant land,teaching it in its passage the hardy virtue of endurance, andthe ennobling faculty of hope and of trust inGod,—lessonsso profitable to the intellect as well as to the soul of man,has under the Papacy no room to act.In the room of faith,Popery, as is her wont, substitutes the counterfeit quality,credulity ; and a credulity so vast, that it receives withouthesitation or question the most monstrous dogmas, howeverplainly opposed to Scripture and to reason.In short. Popery teaches her votaries to devolve upon thepriesthood the whole responsibility and the whole care oftheir salvation. The well-known case of the late Duke ofBrunswick is no caricature, but is simply a plain and honeststatement,—though not such, we admit, asa Jesuit wouldhave given,—of the real state of matters in the BomishChurch. " The Catholics to whom I spoke concerning my