county of Limerick had near been reduced to a desert. Had these scourges of mankind, usury, funds and bankruptcy, been the invention of the Pope, or Catholic Church, the hills and vallies, would for ever ring with the yells of Quakers, Jumpers, Methodists, and swaddlers, against the Inquisition, Jesuits, Pope, and Popery. But they are the invention of the Protestant Spiritual Head, Old Harry and King William III. Their invention is indeed a curse to governments and peoples; it enabled a few cunning individuals to involve by repeated loans and receipts, England in a debt exceeding all the money in existence; it brought into existence a set of persons that are neither merchants, manufacturers, nor proprietors; a set of infamous idle usurers to be eternally devouring the fruits of other men's labor; whose interests differ from that of all others to whom public distress is a sun shine, and famine a harvest. The invention has moreover weakened the bonds of charity, generosity, and patriotism; fostered the pride, ambition, and avarice of the rich; created contempt for the poor; enabled the government to mortgage the substance of all future generations; and reduced commerce into a mere gambling speculation for the sole benefit of the usurer.

The black cloud overhanging the British Islands ready to burst and hurl all classes and things, sacred and profane, into a confused chaos; to scatter about the fragments of society, the sport of murderers, robbers, and infidels, would indicate that satan never found out a bait more effectual for catching souls than usury. To our grief almost all classes, Catholics and Protestants, swallow it. If you say to the Protestants, though they have the Bible for ever hanging on their lips, that usury, or increase is reprobated in both Testaments, they will laugh at your simplicity. As to Catholics, both sheep and shepherds are, either as lenders or borrowers, entangled. Not from any pretensions to prophesy, but from my observation of the natural current of public events, I have long since formed a firm conviction that England will soon hear the crash. Nor have I ever ceased sounding the alarm; though they invariably answer that it is but folly to continue for ever, Casandra-like, predicting the fall of Troy; as no body will listen, and as persecution and obloquy is my only portion. Not less arduous and

numerous were the obstacles to the truth in all former ages; not more avaricious and averse to the Gospel principles were the heathens than the modern usurers; no was the world in general then less corrupt than she is now; notwithstanding the Apostles, Pope, and Prelates went up to face the enemy, and raised a wall for the house of Israel; they fearlessly preached against avarice, usury, and extortion. Shall we not follow their steps; shall we not, for fear of worldlings, hand down to posterity the same sacred deposite which we had received from the piety of our fathers?

TRAFFICK AND MONOPOLY.

It is extremely difficult for Traffickers, in general, to save their souls. Forestalling and Monopoly, in particular, is odious to God and man. Traffick, being the parent of usury, infects by degrees public morals, and finally upsets society.

In proof of these Propositions, my documents are drawn, as usual, from the Corpus Juris Canonici-' Body of the Canon Law; and from the Corpus Juris Civilis-Body of the Civil Law.' Here also, as usual, are my references carefully marked for the learned reader.

GRATIAN, Dist. 88, c. 11. The Lord, by expelling the buyers and sellers from the temple, signified, that a merchant can seldom or never please God. Therefore no Christian should be a merchant; but if he would, let him be cast out of the Church of God. The Prophet saying, Because I have not known traffick, I will enter into the powers of the Lord: PSALM 1xx. 15. Just as the man walking between two enemies and anxious to please both and gain the good will of each, cannot go on without evil saying: he must necessarily speak ill of this to that man, and of that to this man, so the buyer and seller cannot exist without lies and perjury. But their property is neither lasting nor prosperous, because it is gathered through sin as when wheat, or any such grain is winnowed in the sieve, the grain falls down by degrees, and the dross and chaff alone finally remain in the sieve, so nothing of the trafficker's substance ultimately abides but sin alone. 'But to this some persons may object, All mankind are merchants.' But I shall show who is not a merchant, that the man

of a contrary character may be looked upon as a merchant. Who ever procures an article, not to sell the very thing entire and unaltered, but to make of it a material for some workmanship, he is not a merchant. And whoever procures a thing for the purpose of making profit by disposing of the same thing entire and unalter ed, he is the merchant that is cast out of God's temple. Consequently the usurer is accursed beyond all traffickers, for he sells the things given him by God, not acquired as the trafficker does; and: he remands his own thing with usury, taking away, therefore, the other man's property together with his own.

Some persons may further object, Is not the man, who lets a farm on shares, or a house for rent, in the same state with the man, who gives money to usury? He is not; first, because money is intended for no other use, but to purchase with; second, because the owner of a farm makes profit by tilling it, and the owner of a house profits by dwelling in it. Therefore, the man that lets the use of a farm, or house for price, seems to barter somehow profit for profit, whereas nothing is gained from the money that is hoarded; third, the land or the house wears in the use, but the money is neither worn nor diminished in the circulation: St. John Chrysostom, Constantinople, An. 400.

Chap. 12. My mouth shall announce thy justice; thy salvation all the day long as I have not known traffic (literaturam: aliqui codices habent negotiationes, ait B. Augustinus.) I shall enter into the powers of the Lord: Ps. lxx. If the Psalmist sung the whole day the praises of God for not knowing traffic, let the Christians, by refraining from traffic, correct themselves. But the merchant replies, I bring the goods from afar, and seek bread by my labor; the laborer is worthy of his hire. The sin is in the lie and perjury, not in the traffic. I, not the traffic, tell the lie. I could say, 1 bought for so much, and will sell for so much; buy if you please. Upon what principle then could you restrain me from traffic? All artizans, tailors, and farmers tell lies. Would you have me look to dear times for selling the corn that is stored in my granary? But you say that neither honest farmers do this, nor upright merchants that. What then? Is it sinful to have children, because, when they have a head-ache, the wicked

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and infidel mothers seek to cure them with sacrilegious charms and spells? All these are the sins of the people, not of the things. Therefore see, Bishop, says the merchant to me, how you understand the Psalmist, and restrain me not from trafficking. The traffic makes me not a sinner, but my own lies and iniquity. Let us therefore go and seek the merchants, who presume to boast of their deeds, forgetting the Psalmist who recommends that no body boast of his deeds, as the PSALM 1xxxvii. 10, All the day I cried to thee O Lord, is a living evidence against the physicians, the proud promisers of salvation, so is the PSALM lxx. My mouth shall announce thy justice, against the traffickers, that boast of their deeds. Consequently the Lord expelled from the temple those persons desirous to establish their own justice, and that are ignorant of the justice of God. Traffic is called negotiating, negotium, quasi nec otium, because it denies unto man the leisure that is good, and because it aims not at the true rest, which is God: B. Augustin on PSALM lxx. An. 415, in Africa.

33, Quæst. 3, Dist. 5, Chap. 2. The quality of the gain either excuses or accuses the trafficker, as profit is both innocent and base. However it is better for the penitent man to endure loss than to expose himself to the danger of trafficking; whereas it seldom happens that the dealings of the buyer and seller are free from sin' Pope Leo. An. 443.

Chap. 4. If any persons were, by God's grace, called, they first manifested their faith by laying aside the military chain; but should they again return to the vomit; should they, by means of money, or the patronage of friends, return again to the military life, let them, after having spent three years with the hearers (audientes,) abide for ten years among the penitents, (penitentes). Let all persons notice their disposition and the fruit of their penance. Whosoever make manifest by tears and compunction and good works, their conversion, not by words alone, but in truth and fact, when the appointed time is fulfilled, and they have already began to hold prayer, communion, it will be allowable to the Bishop to treat them more leniently. But whosoever would indiscriminately receive relapsed sinners, imagining it sufficient for them to enter the Church, they must themselves certainly fulfi} the stated times:' Con. Nice, Can. 11. An. 325.

Chap. 6. Them we deem false penances, that are not, from the authorities of the Holy Fathers, imposed according to the quality of the crimes. Consequently, every soldier, or trafficker, or person in a sinful office, or in possession of ill-gotten goods, or harboring malice in his heart, must, if he would return to God, know, that no penance salutary, and conducive to salvation, can be effected, unless he renounce the traffick, desert the office, dismiss from his heart the malice, restore the ill-gotten goods, and lay down his arms; never again to resume them, except with the advice of the Holy Bishops in defence of justice :' St. Greg. 7. An. 1078.

Chap. 7. The question may be put, why did Peter, who had been previous to his conversion a fisherman, return after his conversion to the fishing; and as the Truth says, No man putting his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven'; why did he again seek the office which he had deserted? The reason becomes, from a little reflection, manifest; because the occupation that might without sin be followed, previous to conversion, could, without sin, be pursued subsequent to conversion. We see that Peter had been a fisherman, and Matthew a publican; Peter returns after his conversion to the fishery; but Matthew sits no longer in the Exchange, for it is one thing to seek liveli. hood by fishing; and another, to make riches by money-changing. Almost all trafficks are of such nature, that they can seldom, or never be transacted without sin. Therefore, to such occupations as necessarily lead to sin, the mind should never, after her conversion, return:' St. Greg. the Great, Hom. 24.

Endless would be the task to quote all that the Catholic Church has decreed against trafficking. Impervious to the rays of truth and lost in the sable cloud of avarice must that trafficker be, who will not be convinced by the six authorities which I have given— SS. Chrysostom, Augustine, Leo, both Gregories, and the holy Council of Nice; particularly, when he sees how closely they keep their eye upon the seventieth Psalm, and upon the expulsion of the money changers from the temple. Is there a trafficker so reckless of salvation, that will not be panic-struck, when St. John