Page:The spiritual venality of Rome.djvu/19

XT deceived themselves. Woe to them if they sie not To the lay division, the same charity can, with no afiectation of candour, be extended. If their edu- cation be at all above the most illiberal, they cannot fail to be in heart, as many with their lips profess to be, disbelievers in the religion which they still profess, and upho*d, and with a reckless inhumanity impose upon others — ^particularly the simple and helpless. Yet even these, even the latter, although as much as possible disqualifying themselves for commisseration, I embrace in the charitable and fervent prayer, that they may see and repent of an insincerity, of which they can hardly be uncon- scious, and at length view with some pity, and a determination to emancipate, the miserable thralls of the ignorance and superstition which they have bonnd upon them. I do not ask them, nor any of them, to become members of my own community : if I could do it with a safe conscience, I would not ask them to forsake their own. But with the Creed and Oath of Pius IV. about their necks, (the clergy^ $ at least,) and with the countenance which their pub- lic continuance in their own church gives to the entire system, together with the constantly present and tempting facility of a relapse, I hardly see how a barely mental, or even expressed, renunciation of their church's corruption, can thoroughly satisfy the consdenoe. But what I ask, and the sum of iHiat I ask^ and even imploie^ is^ that they become