Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1826-10-07

| father returns to England TO exhort the opPres-
sors of this fathers land to continue their OPP
pression; 10 call upon, the British Parliament
in the name of the God of charity and Justlce,
to continue the letters Of political and civil
persecution on the score of religion, upon the
children of illuminated martyrs!!! His mother
was Spanish lady, whom he describes as de-
corated with every virtue; OF his parents, he
says, "It is enough to say that such were the
purity, the benevoence, and the angelic plety
Of my fathers life, that at his death, multitudes
of people thronged the house to indulge last
view of the dead body. Nor was the wife OF
his bosom at all behind him, either in tuAness OF
faith, or sanctity of manners Yet they were
rigid Roman Catholics! He informs us that
his education was well attended TO.
CAT the age of fourteen all the seeds Of devo-
ton which had been sown i'll my heart sprung
up spontaneously. The pious practices which
had been hitherto task, were now the effect OF
nv own choice. / became constant attendant
a. the congregation of the Oratory, where pious
young men, intended for the church, generally
had their spiritual directors. Dividing my
time between study and devotion, went thro'
course Of philosophy and divinity at the uni
versily of Seville; at the eud Of which recelv-
ed the Roman Catholic order of subdeacon.'
From the above extract, p 10, one would
| imagine that more Immaculate and holy
young gentleman had never taken orders. If
this testimony be worth any thing, it will prove
that the education of child of virtuous pa
rents in the Roman Catholic Church, has not
any faint by which virtue is contaminated by
bad doctrine; it will prove that the education OF
candidates for, holy orders in the Catholic
Church is one which culuvates and developers
the germs which the seed of virtue shoots forth;
our witness in his last letters has not made any
charge of a neglect of cultivating learning or
christian virtue upon the Roman Catholics,
who have charge of educating youth. He
gives. "a farther testimony ON this subject in p.
l4o, he writes
ga more 6lamelss, ingenious, religious set of
youths than that in the enjoyment of whose
friendship passed the best years Of my lie,
the world cannot boast Of. Eight of us, all
nearly ofthe same age, lived in the closest bond
of affection, from sixteen till one and twenty;
and four at least, continued in the same init
macy till that of thirty-fve. Of this knot Of
friends not one was tainted by the breath of gross
Uice, till the church had doomed them to life
of celibacy, and turned the best affections Of
their hearts into crime"
Upon this, all shall remark is, that it sup
ports the testimony before given, that in the
education, in the religious instruction, there
was nothing but the highest purity and most
perfect virtue; whether his crimes and those of
his companions were caused by the obligation
of celibacy, is different question. In D. l43,
he wriles--
81 have seen the most promising men Of my
! cha
racters unimpeached, and hearts overlooking
with hopes of usefulness"
| We have now from the Rev Gentleman full
testimony that the education was excellent and
the demeanour virtuous, and The disposition
good at the time of ordination We have also
his statement regarding himself, that from four
teen to twenty-five he was most yirtuous p
lS, he says his religious doubts began but still
he was pious, and prayed, and was devout, and
they were dispelled. But to prove that unbe-
lief does not always arise from immortality and
levlty, he assures Us that his conscience did 70:
then reproach him with any open breach ST duty
but those committed several years BEFORE He does
/ not voucbsate to say how many years, but the
gentleman was now in his twenty.sxth year, and
he has informed US that in his childhood "no
waywardness of disposition appeared in him to
defeat or obstruct the labours of his parents to
educate him in virtue" and that afterwards, to
wit, from fourteen to this period he and his
: companions were the most hamelesS and religious
youths in the world. Still he had committed open
breaches Of duty several gears before; whichever
side of this contradiction is true, matters very
little; the conclusion is inevitable; the truth Of
both sides being irreconcieable, one of them
must be false; and our witness has consequently
under his own hand stated that which he mu st
have known to be untrue. l shall not dwell
longer on exhibiting the WITNESSES self contra.
diction, for of that abundance shall be furnish
ed am now only examining his credibility
as moral man, and from his own disclosures.
He exhibits himself as an imposter who would
persuade the public that up TO his twenty fifth
year he was blameiess, religious, and virtuous
though he kHew that several years before he
had committed open breaches of duty.
We shall however now give the same Mr..
Whites testimony upon the same subjec, from
another of his works Speaking of his childhood
he writes in his letters from Spain, in the Ma
gazine, vol Q.
P. 81. "The church cannot be wrong, we
know, but to say the honest truth, all her pious
contrivances, have by sad fatality produced in
me Just the reverse of what they aimed at. Tho
| the clergyman who was to shrive this young