Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/72

 me of the book of which I shall shortly speak more fully—Dante's "Divine Comedy." Rome is unchangeable; the Papist of the thirteenth century writes a "Divine Comedy," and the Cardinal of the twentieth century is named Merry del Val! ''Verb. sat. sap.''

And again, what have we to do with "most Holy Synods," with the decrees of decayed and corrupt churches, which are well known to have remained in a state of absolute immobility since the sixth or seventh century, to be fossilised relics, as it were, of the darkest ages, when the very elements of modern science were unknown, when the possibilities of steam had not dawned on the minds of the wildest dreamers? What has Jerusalem or its "Patriarch" to say to Battersea? Are we to be instructed in the simple religion of the Gospel by a city which has not the elements of popular government, which has never heard of the Nonconformist Conscience, which would regard a Church Tea on the day called Good Friday as an outrage? Let Jerusalem shew us the rude