THE PUBLISHED WEEKLY, UNDER THE INSPECTION OF CATHOLIC DIVINES. No. 37. DUBLIN, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1834. VOL. I. THE DESTRUCTION OF BABEL-GEN. xi. 7, 8, 9. COME ye, therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongue, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8. And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city. 9. And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries. SLANDERS UPON CATHOLICS! "Glory not and be not liars against the truth: For this is not wisdom, descending from above; but earthly, sensual, devilish."-St. James iii. 14, 15. THE Rev. gentleman who conducts the Protestant Monthly Magazine, says: "We promised in our last number to notice an attack maae upon our little publication, in the [Roman] Catholic Penny Magazine. On reading attentively the article alluded to, we find our work will be that of renewed aggression rather than defence, as our opponents have not shaken a single point in the arguments directed against the errors and superstitions of the system which they advocate!" How inconsistent and contradictory is error! Does the editor of the "great Protestant work" forget that he commenced the attack by sending forward his monthly periodical to "act as a check upon the Catholic Penny Magazine," which in his own usual way he tells us "is set up by the Church of Rome?" Does he forget that he first embellished his columns of calumnies with an engraving from the apostate and publicly convicted liar, John Fox, representing Popes, Saints, Fathers, Doctors, &c. putting down the Bible-the very men who handed it to us "through ages far removed;" whilst the same engraving exhibited such blasphemers and self-condemned heretics as Huss, Wickliff, Luther, &c. putting up the Bible, instead of showing how they were putting up their impious novelties in the place of the Sacred Volume? Does he forget that he commenced his attack with uttering outrageous calumnies upon the venerable and illustrious Dr. Doyle, and that he has shrunk from admitting his error, or of proving against us that he was not a publicly convicted slanderer ? But his office is that of a "renewed aggressor rather than of a defender!" He is satisfied to tell unblushingly the most notorious untruths, and to continue to tell them, without proof or evidence, and this to be a "renewed aggressor." Verily, his office is a bad one! He says we have not shaken a single point in his arguments, &c." while we have in about twenty instances proved that he can scarcely tell truth by accident. Have we not proved that he stated things as true which almost every one knows to be otherwise? And why has he not, after two months, proved the contrary? Does not his silence give consent? Did we not prove his untruths concerning" Dr. Doyle's change of religion?" Did we not prove his omissions, garblings, and falsifications, in quoting that great man's Evidence? Did we not refute his assertions that the Popish priests forbid the use of the Bible, and that the Church of Rome forces men to celibacy? Did we not expose his gross misstatements concerning Dr. Doyle's edition of the Abridgment? we not prove the falsehood of his assertion, that "the English translation of the Bible, put forth by the Church of Rome, has approached nearer and nearer to the Protestant authorised ver Did sion?" Have we not proved, from Dr. Ryan, the Protestant minister, who attempted to defend his Protestant Bible, that the Protestant translation of 1683 corrected forty errors in the old one," or in other words, that the version which had been used as the foundation of Protestant errors against Catholicity, for more than a century, was in so many instances set aside and brought nearer to the Catholic authorized version, from which it had departed? Did not our Protestant hero tell us, that "the Pope discountenanced the miracles of Prince Hohenlohe ?" Is not the following letter a convincing proof that he asserted a gross untruth, and that he deserves no credit as a writer? In 1822, Prince Hohenlohe wrote to Pope Pius VII. He laid before his Holiness the wonderful things which he and his fellowworkman had been performing, which he submitted to the decision of the Holy See. He gave the merit of the case of the Princess Schwartzenberg entirely to his companion, named Martin Michel, who taught him by invoking the holy name of Jesus to cure various diseases and infirmities. He concluded by desiring his Holiness to state how far he ought to go with his cures, and said, should there be anything in this affair displeasing to him, let it be Anathema, and humbly supplicated the apostolical benediction. THE PONTIFF'S REPLY. "We have received, with pleasure, the account of the cures wrought by the prayers of our dear son, Prince Hohenlohe, and we exhort him to continue them; avoiding, however, all ostentation or noisy publicity, that holy things may not become a mere object of curiosity or derision. We await from the vicar-general, a precise and scrupulous inquiry into the most noted cures, attested by oath, and then we shall appoint a particular committee, which, after an exact research, will decide how far these cures are entitled to be looked on as miraculous. Meantime we give our dear son our apostolic benediction. (Signed) "PIUS VII., &c.” Did we not prove that there was not one particle of truth in all "his interesting particulars," concerning the dying moments of Dr. Doyle? Did we not show when he stated the Doctor did not receive Extreme Unction, that he asserted an untruth, and that when he said "comparatively few of the lower orders attended his remains to the grave," he stated a publicly recorded, if not a deliberate untruth? And is this "the public instructor" who tells us, "we have not shaken one of his points?" To tell lies is bad enough, but to repeat those lies deliberately is shocking for any Christian man ! One thing however is true, that the man who repeats such lies will not be believed even when he speaks the truth. His lies on the rule of faith, on the poor man who had to pay £7 for his marriage, on the Inquisition, and on his other topics, can produce no other effect but the pity, if not the con tempt, of every honest man! We think it well, lest our veracious hero should say that "the whole Church of Rome has attacked him,” to tell him that a simple Catholic layman has had as yet to do with his lies. They are beneath the notice of any Catholic ecclesiastic. SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF SCHEFFMACHER. THE celebrated Scheffmacher came into the world in the year 1688, and was appointed by Louis XIV. to fill the controversial chair in the Cathedral of Strasbourg, in 1715. By his commanding talents, and untired zeal, he succeeded in bringing back many of the unhappy followers of Luther, to the peaceful fold of unity. The productions of his able pen induced many to venture into the field of controversial warfare, and dispute the vantage ground which he had so effectually assumed. Among these were conspicuous Pfaff, Chancellor of the University of Tubingen, and Armand de la Chapelle, pastor at Haye. The laurel of victory was not the reward of their polemical contest. Pfaff's work, though badly written, is still superior to that of the minister of Haye. Scheffmacher died at Strasbourg, in 1733. That Scheffmacher's works are of a superior character, we have only to remind our readers, that the great Colossus of literature, the late Dr. Milner, had frequent recourse to them. Our present object is briefly to touch upon one, entitled "The Polemical Catechism." It has recently been translated into English, by the late Right Rev. Dr. Coppinger, Bishop of Cloyne and Ross. He has prefaced it with an able and argumentative prolegomena, and appended to it an interesting account of the ancient religious and literary establishments in Ireland. In the Polemical Catechism are contained, in a compressed form, the whole of Schettmacher's thirteen celebrated controversial letters. Their predominant object is to show the fallacy and fatal tendency of that novel principle of private judgment, introduced by Luther. CONVERSION OF A QUAKER TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH. On the 6th instant, in St. Mary's Church, Albany, I witnessed the solemn and affecting ceremony of the reception of the talented and learned Dr. Coleman, a native of Massachusetts into the bosom of the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. The doctor was educated a Quaker; he left the society some time ago, and joined the society of Shakers at Lebanon. After he had been baptized, and had read his profession of faith, he turned to the congregation, among whom I perceived a number of Pro'testants, and in a cool, dispassionate, and logical address, informed them of the motives that induced him to become a Catholic. In his sincere investigation of the only one true fold, he was solemnly convinced he found it in the Catholic Church, and that at the pe ril of his salvation, he was, in conscience and duty, bound to embrace it publicly and fearlessly: and thus he sacrificed the deep-rooted prejudices of birth, education, the friendship of his dearest friends, temporal comforts and ease, upon the altar of con viction and truth. What principally flashed conviction upon his mind, he said, with regard to the exclusive truth of the tenets of Catholicity, is the grand and glorious fact of the promise of Jesus Christ to his Church, to "abide with her to the end of time teaching her all truth." He admired the provident arrangement that perpetuates to mankind the benefit of this great promise, by a regular system of spiritual government, deriving its institution from Christ, and relying on the truth of his promises for the certainty of its continuance. He saw, that in this matchless production of mercy and wisdom, nothing had been left to the folly of human speculation-nothing had been surrendered to the wickedness of human passion-nothing to the workings of human vanity. He saw that the revolution of eighteen centuries argued a stability, which has attracted the notice of the infidel, and must, ere long, fix the attention even of the most prejudiced: he saw that empires, kingdoms, and republics, together with their rulers, laws and customs, changed with the lapse of ages :-but that the promise of an incarnate God, in the spiritual government of his church, has come down to us, unaltered, unbroken, and unimpaired-" resting upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone." He logically concluded by observing that Catholicity must be true, or Christianity must be an imposition.-Catholic Diary. THE SACRED TREASURY OF THE FATHERS; ABSTINENCE, FASTING, AND SELF-DENIAL, I AM at a loss to know how to treat my flesh. It is not like other enemies; it is at once a friend and a foe. No chain will hold it, and my partiality prevents its punishment. How can I punish what nature commands me to love? How can I avoid what is intimately united to me? How can I answer its delusive eloquence? It is at once a friend and an enemy, a traitor and an ally. If I yield, I am ruined: if I resist, it is weakened, it will not submit to correction. I cannot afflict it without danger to myself. I cannot indulge it without forfeiting every hope of virtue. Tell me then, my spouse, tell me, nature, how I can escape being wounded, since Christ has commanded me to wage perpetual war with thee? How can I subdue thy tyrannic sway? I say nothing but what thou knowest to be true. Self-love was my |