There is in some people a natural religiosity--that is, a disposition to be religious. If they had been born in Turkey, they would have been devout Muslims; if in Italy, they would have become priests, monks, or nuns, and as ready to burn a heretic as their fathers; if born and bred in England, they would be devout churchmen, pious dissenters, and so forth--just as the various circumstances of birth and education, habits and associations, might dispose or determine.
Now to these naturally religious minds, when fully ripened and blended with a stern spirit of self-denial, which usually accompanies and grows up with it, no system so thoroughly adapts itself as that of Popery--for it just meets and gives full play to that habit of mind which yields, like clay, to every object of groveling, superstitious veneration. By Joseph Philpot
