has the brand of slavery stamped deep and painfully upon him; it is there that he is condemned to holy idleness; it is there that his spirit is fettered, and bowed to blind obedience by superstitious dread and sacred statutes; it is there that he is inoculated in heart and soul with hypocrisy and selfish egotism; it is there that man is degraded to the condition of a slave, and becomes a passive tool. The pain, the torment of this sacrifice is fearful, and nature instinctively revolts when she is robbed of her holiest rights, of the most valued gifts of the Creator. And yet the slave is silent, and all the more so, as the grave is deeper where his freedom and his dignity lie buried. It is but seldom that a despairing cry escapes from his inmost soul, and dies away in utterance, amid the empty sounds of simulated prayer. I cannot think, without a trembling in my every nerve, on all the ignominy which was heaped upon us, and on the disgraceful treatment which we _must_ endure; and I could wish the pen I write with were a blazing torch, to illuminate the deep abyss wherein hearts are stifled, and spirits overwhelmed amid hymns of praise! I need, however, only to depict in quiet, softer colours, what I have seen and felt, to rouse with certainty the wrathful horror, and the deepest sympathy of the greater part of my fellow citizens, who may still be unacquainted with the fearful strategy of the Church of Rome. THE EARLIER PERIOD OF MY STAY IN THE SEMINARY. During the first few days after entering the seminary, I saw depicted in the countenances of my companions in misfortune, consternation, or timidity, the deepest grief, or a sort of desperate resignation, according to their several dispositions; the first evening, for example, of six acquaintances and friends, who were consigned to the same cell, none uttered a single word--all the six were so amazed, that they strove to forget their speechless misery in sleep. Forty young men, in the bloom and strength of manhood, glided silently about like mummies. We looked on one another in gloomy, speechless sorrow, and each one sought in the countenance of his friend, to ascertain the state of feeling in his heart. We all endeavoured to attain that heroism, which can resolve at once to sacrifice the heavenly dreams of youth, its hopes, its wishes, and its freedom,--in order, as they told us, that we might the more successfully promote the temporal and eternal well-being of our fellow-men;--as if it were possible for _him_ to raise men to independence and to self-respect, who cannot boast of their existence in his own bosom. That, however, which most excited my indignation and horror, was the ghastly stagnation, which seen from one side exhibited depression,--from the other, levity, discontent, or cowardice. The young man of four and twenty had closed accounts with himself and all mankind, the dearest ties were broken which bound him to his fellow-men. The