n the midst of darkness, by some wondrous means have
seen the light. A tract, a Bible, or some Protestant friend whom
Providence had thrown in their way, or some one of the few passages of
Scripture inserted in their Breviary, may have taught them a better way
than that of Rome. Instead of stopping short at the altar of Mary, or at
any of the thousand shrines which Rome has erected as so many barriers
between the sinner and God, they go at once to the Divine mercy-seat,
and pour their supplications direct into the ear of the Great Mediator.
You ask, why do these men remain in a Church which they see to be
apostate? Fain would they fly, but they know not how or where. They lift
their eyes to the Alps on the one side,--to the ocean on the other.
Alas! they may surmount these barriers; but more difficult still than
to scale the mountains or to traverse the ocean is it to escape beyond
the power of Rome. Woe to the unhappy man who begins to feel his
fetters! He awakes to find that he is in a wide prison, with a sentinel
posted at every outlet: escape seems hopeless; and the man buries his
secret in his breast.

Some few there are who, more daring by nature, or specially strengthened
from above, adventure on the immense hazards of flight. Of these, some
are caught, thrown into a dungeon, and are heard of no more. Others find
their way to England, or some other Protestant State. But here new
trials await them. They are ignorant of our language perhaps. They find
themselves among strangers, whose manners seem to them cold and distant.
They are without means of living; and, carrying with them too, it may
be, some of the stains of their former profession, they encounter
difficulties which are the more stumbling that they are unexpected. On
these various grounds, the number of priests who leave the Church of
Rome has been, and always will be, small, till some great revolution or
upbreak takes place in that Church.

But, making the most ample allowance for all these classes,--for the men
who are atheists and infidels,--for the mere worldings, whose only tie
to their Church is the gain it brings them,--and for those who are
either doubters, or whose doubts have passed into full conviction that
the Church of the Pope is not the Church of Jesus Christ,--making, I
say, full allowance for all these, I have little doubt that the majority
of the priests in Italy,--it may be not much more than a majority, but
still a majority,--are since