Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/45

( 20 ) to "give to the church, is to lend unto God;" and that, being buried in the sacred vestments of a religious order, ensures a favourable reception from St. Peter, who more readily opens to them the portal of everlasting life. In visiting places of public worship, in Roman Catholic countries, we cease to wonder at the deeply imprinted superstition of the, people; children, before they can scarce speak, are taught to set a sacred value on the ridiculous grimace of devotion, and a father brings his boy, not three years old, to lisp his ave maria, and count his little rosary before the altar. This early impression it is impossible can ever be erased; imitation, at last, becomes a second nature; in maturer years, reason, in vain, attempts to pull down the firm bulwark of  stition,