self well acquainted with
it in all its phases, the result being a hatred of it which he hopes and
trusts he shall retain till the moment when his spirit quits the body.
Popery is the great lie of the world--a source from which more misery and
social degradation have flowed upon the human race than from all the
other sources from which those evils come. It is the oldest of all
superstitions, and, though in Europe it assumes the name of Christianity,
it existed and flourished amidst the Himalayan hills at least two
thousand years before the real Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea--in
a word, it is Buddhism, and let those who may be disposed to doubt this
assertion compare the Popery of Rome and the superstitious practices of
its followers with the doings of the priests who surround the grand Lama,
and the mouthings, bellowing, turnings round, and above all, the penances
of the followers of Buddh with those of Roman devotees. But he is not
going to dwell here on this point; it is dwelt upon at tolerable length
in the text, and has likewise been handled with extraordinary power by
the pen of the gifted but irreligious Volney; moreover, the _elite_ of
the Roman priesthood are perfectly well aware that their system is
nothing but Buddhism under a slight disguise, and the European world in
general has entertained for some time past an inkling of the fact.

And now a few words with respect to the motives of the writer for
expressing a hatred for Rome.

This expressed abhorrence of the author for Rome might be entitled to
little regard, provided it were possible to attribute it to any
self-interested motive. There have been professed enemies of Rome, or of
this or that system; but their professed enmity may frequently be traced
to some cause which does them little credit; but the writer of these
lines has no motive, and can have no motive, for his enmity to Rome, save
the abhorrence of an honest heart for what is false, base, and cruel. A
certain clergyman wrote with much heat against the Papists in the time of
---, {321a} who was known to favour the Papists, but was not expected to
continue long in office, and whose supposed successor, the person,
indeed, who did succeed him, was thought to be hostile to the Papists.
This divine, who obtained a rich benefice from the successor of ---,
{321b} who during ---'s {321c} time had always opposed him in everything
he proposed to do, and who, of course, during that time affected