You perceive the same thing in Romish literature. It has been one of the characteristics of the late movement toward Rome that amongst its most devoted followers it has let loose the spirit of the world. You will observe, for example, in Burns’s Catalogue the strangest possible mixture of ritualism and worldliness, and will see the book of Romish devotion placed side by ride with the wild German love story. Thus has Popery taken hold of the great grand gift of Christianity, and presented it to its votaries in a form accommodated to human nature. It does not deny the necessity of holiness, but it so transforms its character that the unholy man may think he has attained it, and the Italian murderer conscientiously believe himself religious. A second substitution for true holiness is _asceticism_: according to which system the unholy heart finds its refuge in a separation from ordinary men. Christianity carries holiness into life, asceticism takes the hermit out of it. But yet it is perfectly natural that men should seek such a refuge. When they feel the burden of sin, and experience the temptations of a surrounding world, it is no wonder that they should seek a remedy in a complete retirement from its influence. To give themselves up to fasting, penance, and solitary communion with God, must lead, they very naturally argue, to the enjoyment of more holy peace than they can hope to find in the midst of the duties and varied engagements of society. Hence every false faith has produced its devotees. Under different systems they have assumed a different character, but in all the principle is the same. The Hindoo separates himself from the world, and stands with his arm erect till it becomes stiffened into a fixed position; while the Buddhist and the Romanist retire to the convent that they may there withdraw from the world, and devote themselves wholly to spiritual exercises and to God. But though this is natural, it is a mere accommodation. The real evil of the human heart is not corrected by the change, nor have the hair shirt and the leathern girdle the slightest influence in controlling the corrupt passions of the nature. There may be as much pride, self-righteousness, and ill-governed temper in the lonely hermit’s cheerless cell, as in the deep current of the world’s society. At the same time it is an accommodation, for it employs the name of Christ, and gives the semblance of a very elevated piety. It adopts the language of devotion, and prescribes a course of action and self-denial. It gives the inquirer something to do, and something to bear; it separates him also from other men, and so, though his heart be not purified, it gives him the hope that he is holy. This was remarkably seen in the case of Ignatius Loyola. Like Luther, he was awakened to a deep sense of sin, and it is a remarkable fact that the two greatest phenomena of the sixteenth century, the Reformation, and Jesuitism,