they now enjoy: and that the rich, in increasing the happiness of the poor, would ameliorate their own condition.
Such being the conduct which true Christianity dictates to the clergy, it will now be easy to point out the defects of the instruction given by the Catholic clergy to those who follow their faith.
Let us review the whole of the works upon the Catholic doctrine, published with the approbation of the pope and his sacred college. Let us examine the whole of the prayers consecrated by the chiefs of the church, to be repeated by the faithful, lay as well as ecclesiastic; and nowhere in them shall we find the object of the Christian religion clearly pointed out. Ideas of morality are found in small numbers in these writings, and form no body of doctrine. They are thinly sown in his immense quantity of volumes, which are chiefly composed of tedious repetitions of certain mystical notions, which cannot, by any means, serve as guides; but which, on the contrary, are of such a nature as to put out of sight the principles of the sublime morality of Christ.
It would be unjust to carry the accusation of incoherence against this immense collection of Catholic prayers consecrated by the pope. We acknowledge that the choice of these prayers has been directed by a systematic plan. We acknowledge that the sacred college has directed all the faithful towards one and the same object; but it is evident that this is not the Christian object—it is a heretical object; it is that of persuading the laity that they are not in a fit condition to guide themselves by their own understanding, and that they ought to suffer themselves to be directed by the clergy, without the clergy being obliged to possess a capacity superior to that which they themselves possess."
Every department of worship, as well as every principle of the Catholic doctrine, has evidently for its object to bring the laity under the most absolute control of the clergy.
