such reasoning to the Catholics of the present day, respecting the Gunpowder Plot. Whoever will read the history of Titus Oates's Plot, will find that it was concocted against the Catholics, by some of the brightest characters for rascality, and perjury, and infamy, and cruelty, that the world ever beheld. Oates' plot consisted in this, that he accused the Catholics, and Jesuits in particular, of a plot, to murder King Charles the II., (1678), to transfer the sovereignty of the realm to the Pope, and to extirpate the Protestant religion from the land. But was not Titus Oates himself a _Jesuit_, or at least, a _Catholic_? You shall hear who Titus Oates was, from the _pen_ of _Protestant_ Historians. "Oates, the former of this dreadful plot, was himself the most infamous of mankind. He was the son of an Anabaptist preacher, took orders in the Church of England, became chaplain on board the fleet, and was dismissed for some unnatural practices, not fit to be named." (See Hume's History.) You shall hear too, who his accomplices were; "Bedloe, a man, if _possible_, more infamous than Oates himself;" (See Hume's History.) And these were soon backed by others. "A wretch, named Carstairs led the way, and soon, from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of London, _false witnesses_ poured in, to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics." (See Macaulay's History of England.) And yet, on the barefaced testimony, of these abandoned, and infamous wretches, the Catholic Noblemen and Gentlemen, were, with the exception of the Duke of York, expelled from their seats in Parliament. Some of them, (although as innocent of the crimes of which they were accused, as the new-born babe), were tried, and executed on the false, and contradictory evidence, of these base wretches. All of them, died protesting their innocence; and many of them, embraced the opportunity to declare their abhorrence, of the doctrines so commonly, but so unjustly, attributed to Catholics. Their speeches at the place of execution, are still on record. (See "A Remonstrance of Piety and Innocence," 1683. Dodd's History, vol. iii., p. 356.) And if ever a man, may be believed to speak with sincerity, it is when, in the full possession of his senses, he stands on the brink of eternity, and expects the next moment, to be presented before an Omniscient Judge. One of them, Lord Stafford, referred the Peers, at his trial, for an account of his religious creed, to a small tract, entitled "Catholic Principles." This small tract has often been printed, and was then, and is still, considered to convey an accurate notion of the Catholic faith. Well may Hume say, that "this Popish plot, is an incident, which, for the credit of the nation, it were better to bury in eternal oblivion, but which it is necessary to perpetuate, both for the truth of history, and to warn, if possible, their posterity, and all mankind, never again to fall into so _shameful_, so _barbarous_ a