The effects of this on different minds are, of course, very various. In some of a devout and conscientious character, it produces the most earnest attention to the positive duties of religion, and gives them a dim gleam of doubtful hope in the unceasing observance of all prescribed services. But when there is not this spirit of devotion, it enables a wicked man to make a compromise with God, and to follow the natural bent of his natural heart, by attending to the Church’s services, while he utterly neglects the weightier matters of the law. In the late trials for murder in Ireland, it was remarked that many of the guilty culprits were persons remarkable for their attention to the ritual of their Church; and there was a case at the close of the last Irish rebellion in which the hour of a murder was thus proved. One of the witnesses swore that it took place after the hour of twelve o’clock on Saturday night, and he was sure of the fact because the murderers were determined to have a supper before they went on their guilty errand, and that Saturday being a fast-day, they could not touch meat until after the clock had struck. The ritual of fasting was rigidly observed, while the regard for life was altogether gone. In one of the jails at Rome there is a celebrated bandit, by name Gasparoni. This man, by his deeds of bloodshed, had desolated an extensive district in the neighbourhood of Rome, though all the while he avowed himself a very religious man. Sir Fowell Buxton inquired of him whether he had fasted when he was a bandit. He said, “Yes.” “Why did you fast?” was the next question. “Because I am of the religion of the Virgin.” “Which did you think was worse, eating meat on a Friday, or killing a man?” He answered without hesitation, “In my case it was a crime not to fast; it was no crime to kill those who came to betray me.” The man had no true holiness, but had taken the ritual of fasting as its substitute, so that in the midst of his murders he believed himself a very religious man. The same principle appears in the Romish treatment of the Lord’s-day. The moral commandment of the Most High God is abandoned, and for it you find in many Romish catechisms the substitute of human ritual, “Thou shalt keep the festivals.” And this appears in the universal practice of Romish countries. They appear to regard it as a duty to attend mass, but that once done, the whole day is devoted to amusement. The rite is observed, and the conscience satisfied, so that the unregenerate heart is left at full liberty to pursue its own course, and take its pleasure on the Lord’s holy day. Thus the same persons who are engaged in the utmost apparent devotion at mass in the morning are found in throngs in the dissolute French theatre at night. “Attend to the Church’s rites and live as you please,” appears to be the maxim of their morality.