ADVERTISEMENT. THE writer has been requested, by persons whose opinion he values, to put together the several articles that he has written on the subject of S. Alfonso de' Liguori's Morality, and to give his name as a guarantee that the charges made in them are not exaggerated. This he has done in the present volume, and he will add, that he is so far from having wantonly aggravated the case against S. Alfonso and the Church of Rome's morality, that he has passed over in silence those parts of the Theologia Moralis which would have roused the most intense indignation of the English mind, containing offences of which the author himself, living in the moral atmosphere of Italy, and accustomed to the intellectual examination of cases of morbid anatomy, is clearly unconscious, and in the very commission of which, he doubtless had the best of purposes. Further assurance that the teaching here reprobated is the teaching of S. Alfonso, and that it is sanctioned by the authorities of the Church of Rome, may be had by the perusal of a little book, called, "What every Christian must know and do,” lately published in Dublin at the price of one halfpenny, compiled by the Rev. J. Furniss, Priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, and bearing the Imprimatur of "Paulus Cullen, Archiepiscopus Dublinensis.” The three first parts of this volume have been already published in America, with the author's full concurrence, though not at his instance. They enjoyed the benefit of being introduced to the American reader, by the Rev. A. Cleveland Coxe, in a preface which, by his permission, is here reprinted. Trinity College, Oxford, INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. BY THE REV. A. CLEVELAND COXE. THE matter of this volume presents a subject of the greatest importance to every family in America. It appeals to Roman Catholics, as well as to others, because it directs attention to facts which few of our Roman Catholic brethren, in the higher walks of life, have allowed themselves to examine. Even more than ourselves, they have the greatest reason to dread the diffusion of principles which are already beginning to cast away all restraints, and to act through the Confessional, upon the consciences of the young and the timid with deleterious effect. Let them know, then, that it is no longer the heretics who sound alarm; nor yet is it merely the Pascals and the Arnaulds of their own communion; it is no longer those only of the Gallican School, disciples of Fleury and Bossuet; but now, at last, even the most extravagant supporters of the Papacy-such men as the Comte de Montalembert and M. de Broglie, who have always fought against the Gallicans, and who continue the contest, are forced to exclaim against the lengths to which their Ultramontane friends, among the clergy, are pushing their crusade against society, and common sense, and the cause of freedom. According to M. de Broglie, the heads of the Church in France are boldly taking the stand, that "the Church is the declared enemy of human reason, of modern society, of all re Signs of a similar This work of Mr. ligious liberty, and of all political liberty." open warfare are not wanting among us. Meyrick shows conclusively the received maxims on which it is proposed to operate throughout the world. To those who are not Roman Catholics, but who have heretofore thought lightly of the dangers to which we are exposed, by the influences which affect society from the multiplication of Roman Catholic schools and colleges, this work will offer many serious reflections. It will show them to what principles their children are likely to be bred in Roman Catholic schools. It will show them how much confidence they can place in their pledges to refrain from attempts on the faith of pupils; and it ought to convince them that even if such a pledge be kept, as to the letter, there are ways of evading its spirit, and of warping the affections and debasing the conscientious scruples of tender minds. Alas! in how many families of our land are the declining years of parents embittered by the wretched consequences of early indiscretion in this respect. The living corpses of their once loving and innocent children stalk through their houses and haunt their very dreams. They have become aliens to every religious sentiment of their parental home—they are foes to its piety, its peace, its love. They make war on its holiest sympathies-they invade domestic festivity, and even the chamber of death, with their sullen disaffection. Their hearts are eaten out by their superstitions-they are slaves to their priests. Fathers and mothers look in vain for the sweet solaces of declining years, and lament with their latest breath the sad results of tampering in the outset of life with dangers which flatter in the beginning, to bite in the end like a serpent and sting like an adder. This volume shows furthermore, that what was called Jesuitism by Pascal, and what he loathed and lashed more unsparingly than any Protestant of his times, is no longer confined to a school of Romish doctors, but has become the authorized teaching of the Roman Church. No Romish priest is allowed to |