Page:Latin prayers not fit for Irishmen.pdf/10

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for continuing this antiscriptural and absurd practice, which perhaps she dare not confess. Reading prayers in Latin was a great convenience to those foreigners who were sent by the Pope, before the Reformation, into England and other countries, to get bishoprics and parishes, not knowing the language of the country into which they came, they could never have read prayers, or said Mass, if the custom of reading in Latin had not been kept up, and therefore, it was the interest of the Pope to maintain and continue it.

In the next place, reading Latin prayers makes the ignorant people think more highly of their Priests, and leads them to continue in that state of subjection to them in which they have always laboured to retain them. The service in the Chapels seems like some thing done by the Priest for the people, not a service in which the people are to unite with him from beginning to end.

Again, if the prayers were not in Latin, the people would soon come to see that some of them were foolish,