Page:An Index of Prohibited Books (1840).djvu/19

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PREFACE.
xiii

the wagon-load of Papal trumpery, as well as profligacy both in morals and theology, which this foreign monopolist of orthodoxy, virtually, that is, really, approves and recommends. An enumeration of a few only of the books which she

    have, connected with my church at Bilston, a society for the distribution of religious tracts in my district of the parish; these tracts are enclosed in a cover, bearing the name of the minuter of the district, and containing a few words of admonition to the readers. Last week, Mr. John Hutton, one of those who kindly perform the office of distribution, brought to my curate, the Rev. J. E. Troughton, four Romish tracts under my covers, which had been circulated as if under my direction. The St. Mary tracts had been torn out, and these Romish tracts substituted in their place. I shall send the tracts in question to your office, in the humble hope that my brethren in the neighbourhood who may chance to read this paragraph may be upon their guard against a similar ingenuity.

    "I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
    "J. B. Owen
    "Incumbent of St. Mary, Bilston."

    I add another testimony to the same, and to a similar, "ingenious device," from the same periodical, for May 1840, p. 160. "Popish Frauds.—Under the covers of the tracts of Religious Societies, other tracts containing Romish doctrines and superstition are now circulated. The cover of the Family Library is in like manner imitated. An engraving similar, at first view, to that on the tracts of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge is placed on the title-page of the Catholic Institute of Great Britain. Here, then, is a society especially sanctioned by all the Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain, of which the Earl of Shrewsbury is President, and several of the Romanist noblemen and gentlemen Vice-Presidents, and of which all the Romish bishops and clergy are ex-officio members, putting forth on the face of every copy of its stereo-