ime, there are surely signs of the approaching ruin
of Popery, more certain than any speculations on the mystic numbers
of the Revelation. We should point to recent books--not to books
which merely expose Rome, that has been done long ago, usque ad
nauseam--but to books which do her justice: to Mr. Maitland's "Dark
Ages;" Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art;" and last, but not least, to
the very charming work of Mrs. Jameson, whose title heads this
review. In them, and in a host of similar works in Germany, which
Dr. Wiseman's party hail as signs of coming triumph, we fancy we see
the death-warrant of Romanism; because they prove that Rome has
nearly done her work--that the Protestants are learning the lesson
for the sake of which Providence has so long borne with that
monstrous system. When Popery has no more truth to teach us, but not
till then, will it vanish away into its native night.

We entreat Protestant readers not to be alarmed at us. We have not
the slightest tendency toward the stimulants of Popery, either in
their Roman unmixed state, or in their diluted Oxford form. We are,
with all humility, more Protestant than Protestantism itself; our
fastidious nostril, more sensitive of Jesuits than even those of the
author of "Hawkstone," has led us at moments to fancy that we scent
indulgences in Conduit-street Chapel, and discern inquisitors in
Exeter Hall itself. Seriously, none believe more firmly than
ourselves that the cause of Protestantism is the cause of liberty, of
civilisation, of truth; the cause of man and God. And because we
think Mrs. Jameson's book especially Protestant, both in manner and
intention, and likely to do service to the good cause, we are setting
to work herein to praise and recommend it. For the time, we think,
for calling Popery ill names is past; though to abstain is certainly
sometimes a sore restraint for English spirits, as Mrs. Jameson
herself, we suspect, has found; but Romanism has been exposed and
refuted triumphantly, every month for centuries, and yet the Romish
nations are not converted; and too many English families of late have
found, by sad experience, that such arguments as are in vogue are
powerless to dissuade the young from rushing headlong into the very
superstitions which they have been taught from their childhood to
deride. The truth is, Protestantism may well cry: "Save me from my
friends!" We have attacked Rome too often on shallow grounds, and
finding our