forms of impurity, and multiply- the grand and fundamental doctrines ing its attractions. Such appears of the Gospel repentance towards to be the melancholy condition God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and those of our party who of the French. Their learning were nearer to the preacher, and who and refinement, which, under the heard distinctly, informed me, that in influence of a virtuous impulse, these respects it was lamentably dewould elevate and ennoble their ficient. character, now serve but too much to pamper their sensuality, and to encourage their vitious propensities.

"There are three ministers in the Oratoire: the opinions and the sermons of two of them are much in unison with those of the rational Christians, or Unitarians of our own country. We hope not to be so grossly The other, however, whom I had not misunderstood as to be thought ent cast, and his preaching is said to be the good fortune to hear, is of a differto maintain that there is any na-decidedly evangelical. Besides these, tural alliance between intellec- there is Monsieur B. who, though he tual refinement and moral impu- does not preach, studied at the Seminarity; all we mean to assert is, ry at Gosport, and is employed under that when the imagination of a in doing what he can towards the estathe auspices of the Missionary Society, people is set loose from the salu-blishment of schools, and the distribution tary restraints of reason and reli- of religious tracts. It did not appear gious principle, public manners to me that he had done much, or that must necessarily become corrupt- much at present is likely to be done, ed; and the literature and arts, which have a tendency to encourage this licentiousness of the imagination, become accessary in undermining the morals and religion of a nation.

except in the instruction of children. The school connected with the Oratoire, however, is by no means large: I think not more than one hundred children altogether. With respect to the distribution of religious tracts, there seems to be a prejudice in the minds of the people against those printed in England, Letter 15 contains some ac-merely from the circumstance that they count of the state of religion in France; although of some length, our readers will no doubt be too much interested in it to suffer its abridgment.

are English; if any extensive circulation of them should take place, it must be through the medium of the French

press.

"But, alas! alas! Paris is a hopeless scene; populous and splendid as it is, and rich in the sublimest productions "From the Chapel royal we pro- of human genius, it is a spiritual desert ceeded to the Oratoire, in the Rue St. of moral waste. The life of God does Honoré, the Protestant church. It is not animate its people; the voice of a very spacious and venerable edifice, prayer is not heard in its dwellings; its and was well filled with an elegant con- public haunts are thronged by practigregation, consisting chiefly of ladies. cal, if not avowed, atheists. Those who Monsieur Manod was in the pulpit, but are called religious, are the victims of I could not get near enough to hear the grossest superstition; those who distinctly his discourse. From what I bear the office and wear the habits of could hear, it appeared to be upon the the priesthood, are, many of them, the greatness of God. His manner was secret votaries of infidelity. Such as animated; his action sufficiently abun-call themselves Protestants, are sunk dant, but not remarkably graceful; in the coldest indifference, and awfuland his voice by no means well managed.ly fallen from the doctrines and the He seemed to preach memorilor, and spirit of the reformers; and, perhaps, he made frequent and long pauses be-it is not exaggeration to say, that a man tween the paragraphs. In the little of lively devotion, and of genuine piety, that I caught, there was no allusion to in Paris, is as great a rarity as a civil

405

ized being in the wilds of Africa: while | nexion with such a state of things, when the light of true religion, if it be not ut- it is not sufficient to maintain, in the terly extinguished, shines like the glim- ministers of the reformed churches, an mering taper in a sepulchral vault, struggling with the noxious vapours that every where surround it, and scarcely distinguished amid the deep and palpable darkness upon which its feeble rays are shed.

outward separation from the dissipations of the world, or a decent respect for the sanctity of the Sabbath-day! There is something in travelling on the Sabbath-day abhorrent to the feelings is something in the devotion of that day and convictions of a pious mind: there to business, at which a man of ordinary moral principle would shrink; but in the prostitution of those sacred hours to cards, and that too by the ministers of religion-ministers of the Protestant faith!-every sense of propriety, every idea of decency, established by education and maintained by habit, in an English breast, is violated; and men who make no pretensions to piety themselves, start from such a dereliction of principle and decorum with disgust. Does not the command, "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day," extend its obligations to the continent of Europe? Have we, in our little island, and amongst our rigid professors of religion, misunderstood the extent of that command, and stretched it to the whole of the Sabbath, whereas it only intended half? One would almost be induced to think, by a comparison of our English Sabbaths with those of the rest of Christendom, that we had: but yet the edict stands upon the inspired record; and so plainly written, that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not, cannot err, in his interpretationRemember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.

"The state of religion amongst the Protestants, where one should naturally look with some degree of confidence, may be pretty correctly gathered from the circumstance, that they are quite as indifferent to the sanctification of the Sabbath-day as the Catholics; and, in this, it is awful to relate, their ministers set them the example. The Protestant clergy, in Paris, may be seen on the morning of the Sabbath discharging the most sacred duties of their office, and in the evening sitting at the card-table, and deeply engaged in play. I could not have believed the report, had I not been informed of the melancholy fact by several persons who had seen them so occupied at that season; and I might have witnessed it myself, had I chosen to profane the Sabbath by going to the parties in which they visit. Nor is the case with regard to the violation of the Sabbath by the Protestant clergy of Paris singular, and to be attributed to the superior dissipation of the capital. At Nismes, concerning which we have heard so much lately, and the sufferings of whose persecuted Protestant inhabitants cannot too deeply excite the pity and abhorrence of mankind-at Nismes, two gentlemen, friends of mine, were absolutely ridiculed by the Protestant minis- priest, like people'-if the flock in ge"If the old adage be correct-'like ters, for refusing to travel on the Sab-neral follow the footsteps of the shepbath-day. I am aware that it may be herd, and the congregation take the urged, as their apology, that the conti- standard of their religion and morals nental Sabbath terminates with the from their pastor, what can be expectmorning service; that there is no obli-ed from the great body of the people gation at all upon the consciences of the bearing the name of Protestant. Alas! people, with respect to the evening of it is the name only; the principles and the day. It is true, this is the case the spirit with which it was once assowith the Catholic population; but ciated, which animated the founders of from their errors these men profess to their churches, and rendered their have separated themselves, and from martyrs triumphant at the stake, are them we have a right to expect better gone; and I have heard the observation things and I need scarcely observe, from many whose long residence in that better things would be seen, if the France, and intimate acquaintance with principles, whence only they can issue, the people of both communions, have were imbibed and felt. But what must enabled them to form an accurate opibe the tone of religious feeling, if it be nion on the subject, that if there be any proper to use the expression, in con- vital godliness in this country, it is not

amongst the Protestants, but the Catho- | Museum of French Monuments lics. A gentleman, who knew them and the Catacombs:

all intimately, assured me he did not believe there was one decidedly pious family in the Oratoire at Paris. When a few of them, who professed a regard for religion, were presented by an English lady with some religious tracts, they paid not the least attention to them, but said, 'Ah! Madam, these things do very well in England and then, throwing them down, with a shrug of the shoulder, which, with the French, is infinitely expressive, told her, that they were not worth a pe

rusal.

"But before I take you finally from Paris, suffer me to tell you how much I was gratified with a visit to the Museum of French Monuments, and the These should certainly Catacombs.

be viewed last of all the exhibitions in that metropolis, as they have a tendenCy to sober the mind, after the more gay and dissipated scenes which have engaged it. Here you converse with the dead, and the associations awaken

ed, are immediately connected with eternity. In the Museum of French Monuments, you are surrounded by the affecting memorials of departed great

ness.

"If, shocked by the melancholy state of morals and religion amongst the Protestants in France, we turn to the Catholics, the grieved and afflicted mind obtains no relief. There, however, we Here, the monuments, rich in form no expectations, and are certainly sculpture and eulogy, reared to the mespared the pain of disappointment. It is mory of the illustrious dead, are collectnot enough to say, that the Sabbath is ed from the various cathedrals and with them like every other day; it is churches throughout the empire, and more gay, more dissipated, more devo- arranged according to their respective ted to pleasure and to vice. On that centuries. The hazardous enterprise evening, above all others, the stage of rescuing these sublime efforts of throws out its fascinations, and twenty sculpture from the hand of revolutionatheatres, with their unfolded doors, re-ry fury, was undertaken by M. Lenoir, ceive the giddy multitudes. 'Tis then in 1799, at the peril of his life. But for that the public walks are most thronged his intrepidity, diligence, and zeal, very -that the boulevards are the gayest-few of them, in all probability, would that the cafès are the fullest-that the have survived that era of desolation, haunts of pleasure and of vice, are most and France would have lost this most crowded with votaries; while the va- interesting and impressive monumental rious assemblies and parties, of the record of her monarchy. It embraces higher classes, complete the scene of a period from Clovis I. whence their dissipation, and perfect the circle of the first connected records proceed, in 481, vices that desecrate in this abandoned to the time of Louis XVI. The buildcity, God's most holy day. It is the ing appropriated to the reception of the females chiefly who attend mass and monuments was formerly the convent confession on the Sabbath morning; of the Augustins; and the garden is and this only to make way for every converted into a terrestria! elysium, indulgence during the rest of the week. where, beneath the shade of cypress The men pay but little regard even to and of poplar, the ashes of Boileau, La the external forms of their religion; Fontaine, Descartes, and many other while multitudes of those whose profes-illustrious men, repose.*

sion and interest attach them to the * Alexander Lenoir was born in Paris in church, and compel their observance, secretly despise them: so that the Ca- 1762. He studied in the college of Mazarin, and cultivated the art of painting under tholic religion in France is little more Gabriel-Francoise Doyen, painter to the than infidelity under another title-king. In 1790, when the property of the scepticism attired in the habit of a monk church was declared the property of the --and the same system, with the name of Voltaire erased, and that of Pius the Seventh inserted in its stead!"

The following is our author's impressive description of the

nation, he formed the idea of collecting all the sepulchral monuments into one depot. The project having been submitted to M. Bailly, mayor of Paris, was approved by the National Assembly; and a special decree was granted for the accomplishment of the proposed collection ;-constituting M. Le

Silence, mortels,
et vous vaines grandeurs
Silence, c'est ici
le séjour de la mort.

407

"The Catacombs present a differ- of all the exhibitions I have ever seen.
ent scene. There, underneath the There the gay and volatile spirit of the
ground, you pass through innumerable French seems to have sunk into some-
streets and lanes, whose buildings, if thing like seriousness: and thoughts
one may so speak, are composed of hu- and words that refer to the Supreme
man bones, collected from the different Being, and an eternal world, are re-
cemeteries of Paris, and arranged ac- corded. I give you a specimen. In a
cording to the receptacles whence they recess cut in the rock, and under an
were collected. It is, indeed, a golgo- arch that rests upon a wall of sculls, is
tha-a place of skulls! You pass placed a sarcophagus, upon which is a
through parishes of the dead. It is tablet with this inscription:
Paris in the grave. Here its once gay
and busy people lie ranged in their last
house, according to the houses they oc-
cupied whilst living. It is an affecting
sight-it is like going down into the
very heart of the empire of death, and
intruding into the capital of the king
of terrors. One pile alone contains
two millions four hundred thousand hu-
One of the most singular facts
man skulls, and the different heaps ex-
stated in this work, is that con-
tend for a mile in length. Nothing can cerning the intention which it is
be conceived more solemn and affecting said the late emperor of France
than a visit to these dreary abodes. cherished, of becoming the found-
The indistinctness with which ob-
jects are seen by the feeble light of the
er of a religious sect. It appears
tapers you carry in your hand-the
that Unitarianism was the system
intricacy and uncertainty of the path he determined to patronize, and
you traverse, and which is only indica- with which he wished to associ-
ted as the right one, by a black line ate his name.
drawn along the roof of the cavern, the

loss of which clue might be fatal to the
party-the thick and palpable darkness
into which the innumerable passages system from the writings of a Baron
"He became acquainted with this
branch out-the ghastly and affecting Gussey, which accidentally fell into his
materials of which the walls that on hands.
every side enclose you are composed-rals of antiquity had left nothing but a
He found that the great gene-
the appropriate mottos and sentiments name behind them-they had no fol-
engraven upon rude stones, with va-lowers. But the founders of new re-
rious sepulchral devices, interspersed ligions were immortal in their disciples.
throughout the melancholy piles-the The institutes of Moses had existed for
deep silence that reigns around, broken four thousand years-the Gospel by
only by the voices of the visiters, in cu- Jesus Christ was revered over a great
riosity or terror,-conspire to render part of Europe-Mahomet had his mil-
this the most interesting and instructive lions of votaries-Confucius, Calvin,
and Luther, still existed in their sects

numents.

noir, at the same time, keeper of the mo- new religion,' said he, 'I will establish
'I will, therefore, be the founder of a
In the prosecution of his object, his life Unitarianism, and its disciples shall be
was continually in danger. Once he was Napoleonists. I will smile on Protest-
wounded in the hand by a bayonet, while antism, and give religion liberty, as the
endeavouring to preserve the tomb of Car-means to accomplish my design. My
dinal Richlieu from the fury of the revolu- people are so versatile, they will follow
tionary army by whom it was attacked. But the court; on them I will heap my
he has lived to see his labours abundantly choicest favours, and thus destroy a re-
recompensed, by a collection of more than ligion, whose ceremonies and doctrines
five hundred monuments, rescued by his in-
trepidity, arranged by his skill, and com-
mitted to his care;-the admiration of all
enlightened foreigners, and the theme of his
grateful country's praise.

are inconsistent with common sense.'
believe the source whence this in-
formation is derived, is one on which
full reliance may be placed."

From France Mr. Raffles went pastors of its churches are almost to a to Switzerland, and visited most man Arians, or Socinians. A few, perof the important cities of that haps, may cherish the genuine principles of the reformation, and feel their country. His remarks on the religious condition of Geneva, at shall propose nothing to be believed that the present time, exhibit a me-offends reason. Also, when pressed upon lancholy contrast to what it was the necessity of revelation, that dogma so essential to Christianity, most substitute the in the days of Calvin. term utility, (utilité,) which appears to them more soft. In this, if they are not or"It often happens, that where we thodox, they are, however, true to their prinexpect the greatest gratification, we ciples." No wonder, that in the very next enjoy the least. I have felt the force paragraph, in the same horrible article, of this reflection in my visit to Geneva. should be the following passage; "It is not The shortness of our stay did not allow surprising that the progress of infidelity us, indeed, to see any of its society; and elsewhere, since their religion is reduced should be less deprecated at Geneva than the information I had previously ob- almost to the adoration of one only Godtained of the state of religion was not respect for Jesus Christ and the Scriptures such as to excite in my mind very ex-being the only things which distinguished alted expectations of pleasure from that the Christianity of Geneva from pure source. Few of the doctrines, and lit-deism." "The pastors of Geneva," says tle of the spirit, which once rendered Rousseau, "are asked if Jesus Christ is it the glory of the Protestant world, now remain: and that truth, which was asserted and maintained by Calvin, a name to which the city of Geneva is more indebted for its celebrity than to the grandeur of its scenery, the beau-does them honour. Immediately alarmed, ties of its lake, or the stern character of its ancient independence, has scarcely an asylum within its walls. The

asked what mysteries they admit: they dare God: they dare not answer. They are

not answer.

them a haughty glance; he sees through A philosopher casts upon them; he discovers them to be Arians, Socinians; he proclaims it, and thinks that he

terrified, they assemble, they consult, they are agitated; they know not what saint to call upon; and after manifold consultations, deliberations, conferences, the whole terminates in a nonplus, in which is neither * What was the state of things in this said Yes, nor No. These clerical gentlerespect, in Voltaire's time, may be pretty men of yours are, in truth, singular beings. correctly gathered from the friendship that One knows not either what they believe or subsisted between that arch-infidel and the what they disbelieve: one does not even pastors of Geneva. In a letter to D'Alem- know what they pretend to believe; their bert, in 1757, he writes, "The magistrates only method of establishing their own faith and the priests come to dine with me as is by attacking that of others." Thus it usual. Continue to leave with me and was fifty years ago: how it is now, may be Tronchin the charge of the pleasant affair learned from the catechism which the pasof the Socinians of Geneva." In another to tors of that church have lately published, in the same correspondent, he says, "It can- which every thing essential and vital in not be otherwise than that, in Calvin's own Christianity is omitted; nothing is left to be town, with a population of four and twenty believed, and unbelief is the very essence thousand free-thinkers, there should still and spirit, if it can be called so, of the sysremain a few Calvinists; but they are ex-tem. I rejoice, however, that there is a tremely few, and are well abused. All ho- remnant of holy and devoted men still in nest folks are deists." These are surely Geneva, who retain the most ardent attachawful testimonies against them; for what ment to the doctrines of their forefathers, communion hath light with darkness? what and fear not to preach them faithfully. concord hath Christ with Belial? or what These men have recently been encouraged part hath he that believeth with an infidel? by the countenance and zeal of a few BriAnother evidence as to the state of religion tish Christians; and by their united efforts, in Geneva about that time, may be gather-with the blessing of heaven, we have reason ed from the article Genève, in the French to hope that the pure principles of the ReEncyclopædia. The writer of that article says, "To say all in one word, many of the pastors of Geneva own no religion but pure Socinianism. They reject all those things that are called mysteries, and consider it as the first principle of a true religion, that it

formation may yet prevail again in Geneva. Those who wish to see more on this melancholy subject, may consult a most important article in the Eclectic Review for January, 1818, on the above-mentioned catechism, and the catechism itself.