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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1847 Excerpt:... SECTION VIII. 'Ignorance is the pedestal of pride; throw down the basis, and the figure falls. We ought, perhaps, in concluding the last section, to have brought our labours to a close; but we commenced these researches in the hope of being able to ascertain the causes of the extraordinary and unparalleled state of wretchedness and suffering to which the great mass of the Irish have been reduced; and we now--imperfectly as our task has been performed--leave it to our readers to decide how far we have been successful. We, however, neither talk of nor dream of overturning Romanism--evidently the chief cause--by force of arms, by parliamentary enactments, nor by persecution in any shape. The only weapon or means we would use in combating its deluded upholders, and in opposing its errors and corruptions, would be the sword of the Spirit, or Word of God. Though many Protestants, as we have seen, at the time when " Emancipation" was granted, were led to imagine that popery had changed its character, papists themselves, at least their priests, knew well that it had not done so, and that, in all parts of the world, their creed was still the same; for do they not continue to proclaim their determination to maintain the power, and authority, and supremacy of the Pope of Rome, the worship of the Virgin Mary, the use of images, relics, indulgences, penances, and the doctrine of Purgatory, of Transubstantiation, and of seven Sacraments--in short, the creed of Pope Pius IV., as it is set forth in Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church, published only a few years ago. With this so publicly avowed to the world, how was it possible to expect, notwithstanding what was at the time declared on oath by the Irish Koman Catholic bishops to the contrary, that they and their pr...