ing taxes. In the second year of her reign there happened one of the most dreadful storms of wind ever known. Baker says it would fill a large work to relate distinctly the particulars of the mischief done throughout England by its violence. Distracted by the intrigues of the factious statesmen who ruled in her days, this queen died of a broken heart. George the first now ascended the throne, and the most remarkable circumstance in his reign was a rebellion in Scotland, and the blowing up of the South sea bubble. This latter transaction caused great discontent; and Goldsmith says, "the corruption, venality, and avarice of the times, had encreased with the riches and luxury of the "nation. Commerce introduced fraud, and wealth introduced prodigality." The death of this king was sudden. His son George II. succeeded to the sceptre, and the nation was still scourged with war and taxes. In 1745 a second rebellion broke out in Scotland, in which many lives were lost on both sides. This prince also died suddenly in his palace at Kensington.

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He was succeeded by his grandson George III, under whom the Catholics experienced a little breathing, but not till the nation had felt the heavy hand of calamity. To record all the striking events of this most eventful reign would require more space than we can spare; we must therefore be content with recounting a few of them. The innate disposition of his late majesty would not allow of persecution; but the spirit of "Protestant-ascendency," which predominated in his councils, was frequently manifested by its acts. The reign of George the third was ushered in by war, and though the longest of any sovereign that ever wielded the British sceptre, the intervals of peace were of short duration. The seven years war was scarcely concluded when a commotion took place in the North American colonies, which broke out into an open rupture, and after a prodigal waste of blood and treasure, finally ended in the separation of the colonies from the mother country, and their erection into an independent state. Just before the close of this war, and while consternation reigned for the safety of the kingdom, a slight amelioration of the penal laws was granted to the Catholics, and further lenity towards them was meditated, in consequence of their unimpeachable loyalty. This roused the bigotry of Protestant-ascendency," and associations were entered into to perpetuate the system of intolerance and persecution. A fanatic of noble extraction, lord George Gordon, was placed at the head of these combined intolerants, and the flame of irreligious fury soon burst forth, committing the most wanton outrages on the Catholics. Chapels were destroyed in England and Scotland, calumnies were circulated in abundance, the lives of individuals were threatened, and even the safety of the city of London was endangered, before the effervescence of popular prejudice could be restrained. These disgraceful proceedings took place in 1780. Lord George Gordon was tried for high treason, and acquitted; he was afterwards convicted of a libel, and sentenced to be imprisoned. Previous to his conviction, however, this champion of "Protestant-ascendency" renounced the Christian religion and embraced Judaism, ending his days in prison, unpitied and unnoticed, Shortly after this manifestation of the persecuting spirit of Protestant-ascendency," the kingdom was thrown into considerable

agitation by the state of the king's health, which rendered him incapable of exercising the royal authority. The monarch was happily restored to his health, but the nation had hardly recovered from the shock, when it was again thrown into disorder by the breaking out of the French revolution, which once more involved the country in war, from the effects of which the next generation probably will not recover. The heavy expenses incurred by a protracted contest of twentyfive years duration, have reduced the country to a state of indigence and poverty. A debt of more than eight hundred millions of pounds sterling has placed her in a state of insolvency, and pauperized her people. The nominal capital of the debt is principally in the possession of the Jews, into whose hands the estates of the nobility are silently passing, some of them obtained from the church at the beginning of the reformation, while the poor in some parts of the kingdom are reduced almost to the same state as in the reign of Edward VI. For want of regular employment they are compelled to labour on the roads, drawing gravel in carts like beasts of burden, for a shilling a day, and in some places the magistrates have fixed the sum for subsisting a man, his wife, and three children, at ten pence a day. The only buildings of note now are prisons and penitentiaries; in days of yore, they were churches and castles. It has been stated in the house of commons that perjury is now become a system of pecuniary emolument; the prisons are filled with offenders of every description; the crime of self-murder is encreasing in a frightful degree; and whole parishes in Ireland have been in a dying state from starvation. While bible societies have been established and multiplied to circulate the scriptures, infidelity and deism have been rapidly increasing among the ranks of Protestantism; the established churches are nearly deserted, or made places of assignation; while dissenting meeting-houses are hourly raising in the kingdom; yet this is the time when the "few plain Christians," in the face of these undeniable facts, would persuade their readers, that this nation has been exempt from calamity and had not felt the hand of divine vengeance!!! What infatuation are some men blinded with, when pride and self-conceit take the place of truth and common sense.

The period of the primitive persecutions by the Roman emperors embraced three centuries; the space from the commencement of the reformation to the present day, during which the Catholics have been the objects of persecution, is of the same duration. We have confined our remarks to occurrences in this country, which are more easily to be detected if misstated, and we appeal to the unbiassed reader whether our observations are not astonishingly analogous to the "Remarks on "the vengeance of God towards the Persecutors of the Christians," made by the modern editors of the modern Book of Martyrs?

Before we take leave of the subject, however, we will here slightly notice the awful end of some of the principal reformers on the continent. Luther, by his own confession, held intercourse with the devil, and was found dead in his bed. Zuinglius was killed in battle, fighting sword in hand for his new doctrine. Ecolampadius, soon after Zuinglius's tragical end, was found dead in his bed, strangled, as Luther would have it, by the devil. Cranmer, after pampering to the vices and passions of Henry the eighth, conniving at the spoliation

OF

For's Book of Martyrs,

CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL.

No. 9.

Printed and Published by W.E. ANDREWS, 3, Chapter-
house-court, St. Paul's Churchyard, London.

Price 3d.

EXPLANATION OF THE ENGRAVING. The virgin queen Elizabeth, whose notorious amours with her court favourites are acknowledged by both historians and novelists; and whose cruelties towards the Catholics were not excelled by Nero or Domitian, is seen, after. a reign of forty-two years, lying in bed and viewing the appearance of her own person, lean and fretful, in a flame of fire.-See preceding number, page 124.

of church property by Edward's courtiers, and burning others for heresy, was himself sentenced to the stake, after having engaged in a treasonable conspiracy to rob his master's daughter of her legal rights. Ridley, Latimer, and others, who were apostates from their faith, and violaters of their clerical vows, as well as partakers in the treason of Cranmer, also shared his fate. But enough: we shall have to enter more fully into the lives of these three last-named characters, when we come to the reign of Mary, under whom they suffered, and for which they have been raised by Fox to the rank of Protestant saints.

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BOOK II.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS IN PERSIA BY SAPORES; IN EGYPT, &C. BY THE ARIAN HERETICS; BY JULIAN THE APOSTATE; BY THE GOTHS, VANDALS, &c. &c."

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Such is the head chosen by John Fox for the second book of his work, and it is worthy of notice, that not a word of Popery is yet in

troduced by him, nor are the Catholics charged yet as being persecutors. The natural inference therefore to be drawn is, that the Catholics were the persecuted, and that this was the fact we shall be able to prove by the most unquestionable testimony. The first section of this book commences with the "Persecutions of the Christians in Persia." The editors say, that "in consequence of the gospel hav"ing spread itself into Persia, the Pagan priests became greatly alarmed, dreading the loss of their influence over the minds of the people. They therefore complained to the emperor, that the Christians "were enemies to the state, and held a treasonable correspondence with "the Romans, the great enemies of Persia. The emperor, heing him"self averse to Christianity, gave credit to their accusations, and issued "orders for the persecution of the Christians throughout the empire." If the reader will take the trouble to look into any of the numerous writings that have been published by the adherents of "Protestant ascendency," he will observe that the charges brought against the Catholics of this day are the same that were brought by the Persians against the Christians in the fourth century; and what is not less worthy of observation, that they take their rise from the same feeling. Catholicism, cries "Protestant-ascendency," is rapidly increasing in this country, we must therefore sound the alarm, lest our churchmen lose "their influence over the minds of the people." The press instantly groans with charges ten thousand times repeated, and as often refuted, and the ears of the people are stunned with the sounds of "Nopopery,"-" The Church in danger," &c. The people are told that the Catholics are disloyal because they hold "correspondence with the Romans, the great enemies of England;" and that the emancipation they are striving for "in reality means the power of overthrowing all those "sacred institutions to establish which our ancestors bled on the scaffold, and expired at the stake." But if these same people would lay aside their idle prejudices, and look steadily at the situation of the country, while they turn their eyes over the page of history and see what their country was when their ancestors were Catholics, they would soon learn that the "sacred institutions," which raised England so high in the scale of nations, were established in Catholic times, and that they are now little more than nominal under "Protestant-ascendency." Of the martyrs noticed by Fox who suffered under this persecution we shall say but little, and that little is, they were unquestionably Roman Catholics, and held the divinity of Jesus Christ. The first martyr on Fox's list under Persian persecution is St. Simeon, archbishop of Ctesiphon and Seleucia, and primate of Persia, who, on being taken before king Sapor, boldly avowed, "We Christians have no Lord but Christ "who was crucified." This then was the belief of the Christians in Persia at the beginning of the fourth century, and for this belief, observe reader, they underwent the most cruel tortures, and submitted to death rather than disavow it. It may here be remarked, that the Rev. Alban Butler, in his martyrology, assures us, that this king, in order to abolish the Christian religion, decreed, "that whoever should "embrace it should be made a slave, and he oppressed the Christians "with double taxes." So were the Catholics of England and Ireland oppressed by "Protestant-ascendency" with a double land tax, and

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their situation rendered worse than slavery by a penal code professedly enacted to annihilate the Popish (as Catholicism is termed) religion. But the Christian religion was not abolished in Persia, nor is what is called Popery eradicated in these islands.

The second section is headed "Persecutions by the Arian HERETICS," and is a most important part of the work. The acknowledgments here made, together with the studied omissions in the relation, demand our most serious attention, and we beg the reader will give the subject all the reflection he is master of. Fox commences with stating, that "the sect denominated the Arian HERETICS, had its "origin from Arius, a native of Lybia, and priest of Alexandria, who, "in A. D. 318, began to publish his ERRORS. He was condemned by "a council of Lybian and Egyptian bishops, and the sentence was con"firmed by the council of Nice, A. D. 325. After the death of Constan"tine the great, the Arians found means to ingratiate themselves into "the favour of Constantius, his son and successor in the East; and “hence a persecution was raised against the ORTHODOX bishops and "clergy. The celebrated Athanasius, and other bishops, were banished at this period, and their sees filled with Arians." To this paragraph the modern editors have added the following remarks in two notes: 68 Arius, the founder of this sect of heretics and the first cause of "the persecutions which are related in this section, died miserably at "Constantinople, just as he was about to enter the church in triumph." ... How humiliating is it to perceive that the Christians had scarcely "escaped from the persecutions of their general enemy, ere they began to persecute each other with the most unrelenting fury! How "could'these men dare to arrogate to themselves the exclusive title of Christians, when every part of their conduct was at direct variance "with the precepts and practice of the Divine Founder of the religion "which they professed? How absurd is the expectation of enforcing 'belief; and how criminal to attempt to effect conviction by the sword."

Here then we have a grand specimen of the system pursued by "Protestant-ascendency" to instruct and enlighten the people. "The "sect denominated the Arian heretics," we are told, had its origin from Arius. So far it' is true, but what was the heresy this Arius taught? Not a word is said to throw the least light upon this most important part of the subject. He was condemned, they further say, by a council of bishops; but for what was he condemned? Why did they not state the offence he had committed, as well as the fact of his condemnation ? Suppose, for example, one of the clergy of the church of England as by law established took it into his head openly to impugn the doctrine of the thirty-nine articles, and for this act was condemned by the bishops, as guilty of broaching error; what should we say of that writer who professed to give a statement of the occurrence, yet studiously omitted to mention the most essential part of the fact, namely, the doctrine he attempted to establish in opposition to that which he attacked, and which constituted the offence. There are several persons now in prison for denying Christianity and attacking its principles; but would it not be thought a complete piece of delusion were a future historian, in recording the fact, merely to say, these persons were the founders of a sect, for which they were condemned? The reader would natu