Thus, as I have stated, Christianity was no longer taught; but a totally different system, usurping its name. Instead of simple apostles, it produced showy popes and cardinals; instead of humble preachers, proud temporal princes, and dignitaries as proud; instead of the Bible, the mass-book and the legends of saints; instead of one God and one Saviour Jesus Christ, the eyes of its votaries were turned for help on virgins, saints, and anchorites—instead of the inward life and purity of the gospel-faith, outward ceremonies, genuflexions, and pageantry without end. Every man, however desperate his nature or his deeds, knew that for a certain amount of coin, he could have his soul white-washed; and, instead of a healthy and availing piety, that spurious and diabolical devotion was generated, which is found at the present day amongst the bandits of Italy and Spain—who one moment plunge their stiletto or bury their bullet in the heart of the unsuspecting traveller, and the next kneel at the shrine of the Virgin, perform some slight penance, offer some slight gift to the church, and are perfectly satisfied that they are in the way of salvation. It is that spurious devotion, indeed, which marks every superstition—Hindoo, Mahometan, or Fetish—wherever, indeed, mere outward penance, or the offering of money, is substituted for genuine repentance and a new life. Let any one, therefore, imagine the effect of this state of things on Europe through seven or eight centuries. The light of the genuine gospel withdrawn—all the purity of the moral law of Christ—all the clear and convincing annunciations of the rights of man—all the feelings of love and sympathy that glow alone in the gospel;—and instead of these an empty show; legends and masses, miracle-plays and holiday pageants; such doctrines of right and wrong, such maxims of worldly policy preached as suited ambitious dignitaries or luxurious friars—and it will account for that singular state of belief and of conscience which existed at the time of the discovery of the new countries of the East and West. It would have been impossible that such ignorance, or such shocking perversion of reason and faith, could have grown up and established themselves as the characteristics of the public mind, had every man had the Bible in his hand to refer to, and imbue himself daily with its luminous sense of justice, and its spirit of humanity.