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always open to those base politicians who promise to free them from these restraints.

A. Backus. The grand object of that mock patriotism, which is generated and nourished by the sunshine of real liberty, has been to destroy the systems of human good, to arm vice against virtue; confusion against order, and licentiousness against law. To cut the nerves of wholesome restraint, to bring into contempt those who are "ministers of God for good," and lead all the world wondering after some beast of human imagination. 708. POLITICAL FAVORITES.

Eng. Paper. Only two kinds of men succeed as public characters: men of no principle, but of great talent; and men of no talent, but of one principle-that of obedience to their superiors. 709. POLITICAL WISDOM.

Benevolence is the centripetal power in the political system; selfishness, the centrifugal. The former tends to make a unit of the race, combining and disarming their power, and constituting an edifice of strength and safety. The latter tends to split nations, divide churches, explode families, and even to sever soul and body, constituting a universal wreck. Political wisdom and sagacity therefore, essentially consists in giving encouragement to benevolence, and in discouraging and restraining selfishness.

Spring. I know not where to look for any single work which is so full of the great principles of political wisdom, as the laws of Moses and the history of the kings of Israel and Judah. 710. POPERY, ROMANISM.

Mc Crie. Popery- an organized conspiracy against civil and religious liberty.

Dr. Geddes. The popish religion has been, mediately or immediately, the cause of almost all the political disturbances in Europe, since the days of Gregory VII.

Hall, R. Popery combines the "form of godliness," with a total denial of its power. A heap of unmeaning ceremonies, adapted to fascinate the imagination and engage the senses implicit faith in human authority, combined with an utter neglect of Divine teaching- ignorance the most profound, joined to dogmatism the most presumptuous a vigilant exclusion of

POPERY'S CONFESSIONAL, POPERY'S MAXIMS.

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biblical knowledge, together with a total extinction of free inquiry -present the spectacle of religion lying in state, surrounded with the silent pomp of death. Of all the corruptions of Christianity, which have prevailed to any considerable extent, Popery presents the most numerous points of contrast to the simple doctrines of the Gospel.

Ed. It is impossible to ascribe more expressive names to popery, than those given it before it was born, such as “Man of sin,” “Mother of abominations,” etc.

Ib. Popery has nearly run its race, and, according to Scripture, must soon die by suicide. There may be, however, a serious flare up, before her candle-wick goes out in eternal infamy. She may wound, and perhaps destroy many others, in her terrible death-struggle. Her death may be no less revolutionary than her life. "Come out of her, my people, that ye not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." 711. POPERY'S CONFESSIONAL.

be

Prize Essay. An angel could scarce discharge such an office without contamination. The lake of Sodom, daily fed by foul and saline springs, and giving back these contributions in black and sulphurous exhalations, is but a faint emblem of the action and reaction of the confessional on society. It is a moral malaria, a cauldron from which pestiferous clouds daily ascend, which kill the souls of men. Hell itself could not have set up an institution more ingeniously devised to demoralize and destroy mankind.

712. POPERY'S MAXIMS.

Jesuit Maxim. We are not bound to keep faith with heretics, when it is greatly for our advantage to recall our promises, and not fulfil our treaties. Ed. God, and all holy beings are under moral law, and find all their enjoyments in fulfilling every moral obligation. But the "Man of sin" is "above all that is called God, or worshipped," and, of consequence, may do as he please.

Another. Mankind are now so corrupt, that, being unable to bring them to our principles, we must bring our principles to them. Ed. This policy was adopted before the dark ages, and,

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POPERY'S PERSECUTIONS.

in a trice, moral corruption changed sides from the world to the church, policy became the best honesty, and the beast, with his seven heads and ten horns, like Milton's "grisly king," from touch of "Ithuriel's spear," suddenly appeared.

Still another. Ignorance is the mother of devotion. Ed. Of devotion to despotism. Devotion to Christ requires us to "search the Scriptures," and not be "as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding."

713. POPERY'S PERSECUTIONS.

Bulck. According to the calculation of some, about two hundred thousand Christians, Protestants, suffered death, in seven years, under Pope Julian; no less than one hundred thousand were massacred by the French, in the space of three months; the Waldenses who perished amounted to one million; within thirty years, the Jesuits destroyed nine hundred thousand; under the Duke of Alva, thirty-six thousand were executed by hangmen; one hundred and fifty thousand by the Irish massacre, besides the vast multitude of whom the world could never be particularly informed, who were proscribed, starved, burnt, assassinated, chained to the galleys for life, or immured within the walls of the Bastile, or others of their church or state prisons. The whole number of persons massacred since the rise of papacy, including the space of one thousand four hundred and ninety years, amounts to fifty millions.

Spring. The Romish Church ever has been the great enemy of religious liberty. Witness her assumption of the civil power-her slaying the witnesses for the truth, throughout Germany, France, and Britain-her persecutions in the valleys of Piedmont and the rocky Alps-the history of that dark and sanguinary tribunal, the Inquisition-the massacre in the reign of Charles IX., of France, who boasted of having slaughtered three hundred thousand protestants; and the intolerance of Louis XIV., and of Queen Mary, of England, when the prediction was so memorably verified, that "It was given to the beast to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.' Nor has she reformed in principle, from that hour to the present; but is still the same unchanging enemy to religious liberty,

POPULAR FAVOR, POPULAR OPINION.

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and to the rights of conscience, as the actual influence of her doctrines, her precepts, and her practices, everywhere show. It was foretold that antichrist should "wear down the saints of the most High;" and that the scarlet-colored beast should "be drunken with the blood of the saints." And these predictions have been mournfully fulfilled in the oppression, cruelty, and intolerance which have ever distinguished the church of Rome. Intolerance is the natural and genuine effect of her whole system. Uniformly has she maintained the right to persecute, even unto death, every deviation from her creed, and every secession from her family. By the solemn decision of her councils, still unrevoked, heresy and schism are "mortal sins.”

714. POPULAR FAVOR.

Em. Everything that captivates, will at length disgust; therefore, popularity can't live.

Wm. Temple. Come not too near a man studying to rise by popular favor, unless you can aid him in his grand object, lest you meet with a repulse.

L'Estrange. Universal applause is seldom less than a scandal. Ed. What all the world claps, is a sure disgrace.

He that is loudly praised, will be clamorously censured. Penn. Avoid popularity. It has many snares, and no real benefit. Ed. This may easily be done, by doing right, on right principles.

Elevation is exposure.

He labors in vain, who strives to please all.

Wms., T. The approbation and influence which even pious authors receive, are often derived from the errors which they retain, rather than from the truth which they teach; and the errors of such authors, as they have the sanction of beloved and worthy names, are peculiarly injurious. [See 596.]

715. POPULAR OPINION.

Channing. The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of defence around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms.

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POSITIVENESS, POSSESSION, POSTHUMOUS, POVERTY.

Varle. A sense of shame is one of the most powerful checks upon the atrocious vices, which society deems scandalous; so that decency of manners in society is owing not so much to its laws, as to public sentiment, or the authority of opinion. [See 767.]

716. POSITIVENESS.

Ed. Give me a positive character, with a positive faith, positive opinions, and positive actions, though frequently in error, rather than a negative character, with a doubting faith, wavering opinions, undecided actions, and faintness of heart. thing is better than nothing.

717. POSSESSION.

Some

Ed. A miser's possession is a mere misnomer. To possess anything, we must receive our title from God, hold it with a single eye to his glory, enjoy it as an expression of his complacency, and use it as a means of honoring and pleasing him. This gives us a possession of our inheritance, property, time, and talents, that is worth something.

718. POSTHUMOUS.

Dean Swift. He who writes a bad book, with a view to have it published after his death, is both a knave and a coward; for he loads a gun with evil intent, and has not courage to discharge it.

Ed. Posthumous fame rises, as the knowledge of a person's disreputable faults, or bold reproofs of errors, sins, and vices is forgotten.

Landon.

719. POVERTY.

Who can confess his poverty,

And look it in the face, destroys its sting:

But a proud poor man, he is poor indeed.

Solomon. The destruction of the poor, is their poverty. Howe, Rev. N. What can a poor man lose? Ans. His health, his reputation, his peace of mind, his bodily strength, his mental faculties, and his soul.

Ed. Of all poverty, destitution of religion is the worst. Natural poverty is calamitous; intellectual poverty disreputable; poverty in friendship, is a misery; but religious poverty