are, and quite as fit for commissioners of taxes and as unfit for damnation as either you or I. Nor will I be a party to so gross an injustice as their exclusion and insulting humiliation. Besides, can any one declare on oath that the whole Catholic world is buried in idolatry, and that his own ancestors, to the reformation, were idolaters and are all damned? We who so loudly reprobate the doctrine of exclusive salvation, are worse exclusionists than our opponents: they only deal damnation on pertinacious perseverance in known errors; we damn all Catholics in the lump, without one redeeming clause. In no part of Europe, not where French ultras hold arbitrary rule, nor under the autocrat of Russia, nor in Germany, nor the papal states of Italy, nor in any part of the enslaved continent, is there a man required to swear that the 39 articles are an abomination in the sight of God. Such a sweeping arrogation of the power of the divinity of judging the consciences of men is reserved for Protestant England.-I need hardly add, that I threw the oath from me with disgust and left the room. I had rather my tongue were torn from my mouth, than pronounce an oath so abominable and intolerant and so repugnant to the benevolent principles of genuine christianity. In the name of common sense is the national character to be for ever stained, and our statute-book disgraced with enactments subversive of the just principles of justice and natural right? Are laws that were made (whether justly or unjustly matters not) to put down religious intolerance, to be kept in cruel force to perpetuate it? The oppressed are become the oppressors, and a sweeping sentence of interminable proscription is pronounced, in the name of liberality and toleration against six-sevenths of the people of Ireland and one-fourth of the members of the united kingdom. I am Sir, your's, &c.

CHARLES WOLSELEY.

Encyclical Letter of the Right Rev. Dr. Poynter, V. A. L. announcing the Canonical Election of Leo XII. as the Successor of Pius VII.

TO THE CATHOLIC CLERGY AND EAITHFUL OF THE LONDON DISTRICT,

Dearly Beloved Brethren in Jesus Christ,-We lately performed a painful duty in announcing to you the sorrowful event of the death of his late holiness, pope Pius VII. We have now the satisfaction to inform you, that on the 28th of September, a new successor of St. Peter was canonically elected, as head of the holy Catholic church, in the person of his eminence, cardinal Annibal della Genga, who has taken the name of Leo the Twelfth.

The supreme pastoral authority which was given to Peter for the government of the one fold, the church of Christ on earth, has been perpetually transmitted through an illustrious and unbroken succession of supreme pastors down to the present time. In this sacred line, from St. Peter to Leo XII, we count 256 pontiffs, who have succeeded to the exercise of the supreme spiritual authority, attached to this sublime and extensive charge.

What a singular and astonishing event in the annals of history, is the stability and perpetuity of this pontifical throne, which Peter established in the city of Rome! Amidst the revolutions of the world and fluctuations of political events, which in the course of ages have changed the dynasties and constitutions of the states, kingdoms, and empires of Europe, we see this spiritual throne ever unmoved, and ever filled by succeeding sovereign pontiffs, who, through all ages, have governed the whole church of Christ, with the same supreme spiritual authority as was exercised by those who sat thereon in the first ages of christianity. This throne has stood as a firm rock, against which adverse winds and waves have spent their fury in vain. The authority of Peter, which ever lives in his successor, is, in effect, that rock on which Christ built his church, ever superior to the powers of hell, and on which he erected the Pillar of Truth, exhibiting to all nations, in all ages, the unextinguishable light of divine faith.

THIS supreme spiritual authority is not of this world. It was given by Christ to St. Peter and his successors, for the purpose of holding together all the parts of his universal church in that unity of faith, communion and government, on which the whole was founded. It is the authority of a father over his children, of a pastor over his flock. It calls for the perfection of every virtue in him who is charged with the exercise of it. Animated with the spirit of Jesus Christ, whose vicar he is on earth, his views and desires must all tend purely to the glory of God and the eternal salvation of all men. His charge requires that his charity be as extensive as his authority.

We must rejoice, dearly beloved brethren, that a person of such distinguished talents and eminent virtues as Leo XII has been raised to the dignity of the supreme apostolic and pastoral charge. His tried abilities in affairs of ecclesiastical government; his firmness and mildness of character; his sincere piety and universal charity, claim our confidence and attachment; whilst his supreme spiritual authority claims our obedience, in all matters of a purely spiritual nature.

To return thanks to the supernatural providence of God, for the blessing which he has bestowed on his church, by the speedy and happy election of such a supreme pastor, we ordain that the hymn "Te Deum Landamus" be sung, er recited, in every chapel in the London district, after the high mass, or principal mass for the congregation, on the first Sunday after the receipt of the present notice.

We also direct that the name of Leo be inserted in the canon of the mass, and in all approved Catholic prayers, which are offered to God for the chief pastor of the holy Catholic church.

We exhort all, clergy and faithful, earnestly to implore the gifts of the Holy Ghost on our holy father pope Leo XII, that he may be enlightened and assisted to perform the sublime and important duties of his awful charge in the true spirit of Christ; and that he may long live to govern the church, in the unity of the spirit and in the bond of peace.

London, 27th Oct.

1823.

WILLIAM, Bishop of Halia, Vicar Apostolic of the London district.

Poetry.

ON THE RUINS OF BABYLON.

Babylon shall be reduced to heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing, because there is no inhabitant.—Jeremias, li. v. 37.

THE desert was my dwelling, and I stood
Where once in pride of power stood Babylon,
Aye, fallen Babylon!... that pompous queen
Of nations, ruler of the universe;

She of the brazen gates and loftiest towers
Reared on her mighty walls; she that o'erlooked
Cities and tribes of men, and warrior bands,
Vassals and tributaries, countless stores
Of wealth, sources of glory and dominion
Flowing beneath her feet, and called them hers.
Here was her throne:-Alas! how desert now,
How silent is the scene! Still as the grave,
And rightly still,-for 'tis a deep wide grave,
Holding the relics of fallen majesty !

Come and contemplate! Come and read the fate
Of fallen Babel, on her sepulchre !

Here are a thousand hillocks, where there stood
Long years ago, a thsusand palaces;

Here are long mounds of ruin, stretching on
Where once extended Babel's busy streets,
Thronged in their day with wealthy citizens,
Merchants from other lands, captives and free
Lords of the east, and princely visitors
Who came to gaze on mighty Babylon.
There are the shapeless ruins, rising high,
And sadly shewing where in other days
The far-famed gardens of great Babel rose,
To claim the wonder of the universe.
The strong huge walls that once defied her foes
Long levelled, and their fragments deeply sunk,
Are now but faintly traced 'mid broken mounds,
And scattered masses spared as yet by Time.
Amid these ruins and above them still
Stands one stupendous pile, though but a wreck,
A mouldering monument of what it was ;-
And this was once the temple of great Bel,
The idol of Chaldea; broken now,
Confounded and for ever overthrown.

Such now is Babylon! A dwelling place
For beasts and monsters, as the prophets said,
A desert where the owl and ostrich meet,
The lion stalks in gloomy sovereignty,
The bittern finds a marsh, a stagnant pool
Left by the floods within her cavities:
Serpents and creeping things, and reptiles now
Dwell in the caves of mouldring Babylon!

But still amidst these lone and awful wrecks,
These poor remains of glory all gone by,
In solitude and silence wanders on
The great Euphrates,-monarch of the streams,
Majestic, sole survivor, still the same
Unhurt, unchanged by all the woes poured out
On guilty Babylon :-he lives like one
Left of a mighty race, alone and sad.
His banks are hoary with the whistling reeds,
The waving willows fringe his borders still,
Where the poor captive Israelites would sit,
And weep for Sion:-where their silent harps
Hung o'er the stream, nor gave one plaintive sound,
Save when the wind swept o'er their broken cords,
And made wild music as the captives wept.

And these are all that tell of Babylon!
The foot of man hath rarely trodden there,
And never staid. These fragments scattered round,
These birds and savage beasts, this solitude,
This death-like stillness, and this widowed stream,
All witness to the world the awful fate.

Of her, whose crimes had mounted up to heaven,
And drawn the vengeance down which seers foretold,
And long has been accomplished.*—“She shall be,—
That mighty Babylon, Chaldea's pride,

Glorious among the kingdoms of the earth,
No more inhabited, for ever:-nor

Shall the Arabian's tent be fastened there.
Serpents shall fill her houses, beasts shall roam
Free in her temples and wide palaces;
They that pass by shall hiss at all her plagues,
And in astonishment exclaim, How changed

Is Babylon! how lone and desert now

Among the nations !'.... None shall build her up;
For ever she shall lie, wasted and spoiled

And desolate-The Lord hath spoken it !"

October 3d, 1823.

F. C. H.

See Isaias xii, and xiv. Jeremias 1. and li.-Ezechiel xxi, &c.