* A kind of official newspaper distributed periodically at the expence of Government in large towns, and pasted up in public places—­it contained such news as the convention chose to impart, which was given with the exact measure of truth or falsehood that suited the purpose of the day.

I have now conducted you to the period in which I am contemplating France in possession of all the advantages which a total dereliction of religious establishments can bestow—­at that consummation to which the labours of modern philosophers have so long tended.

Ye Shaftesburys, Bolingbrokes, Voltaires, and must I add the name of Gibbon,* behold yourselves inscribed on the registers of fame with a Laplanche, a Chenier, an Andre Dumont, or a Fouche!**—­

* The elegant satirist of Christianity will smile at the presumption of so humble a censurer.—­It is certain, the misapplication only of such splendid talents could embolden me to mention the name of the possessor with diminished respect.

     ** These are names too contemptible for notice, but for the mischief
     to which they were instrumental—­they were among the first and most
     remarkable persecutors of religion.

Do not blush at the association; your views have been the same; and the subtle underminer of man’s best comfort in the principles of his religion, is even more criminal than him who prohibits the external exercise of it.  Ridicule of the sacred writings is more dangerous than burning them, and a sneer at the miracles of the gospel more mischievous than disfiguring the statues of the evangelists; and it must be confessed that these Anti-christian Iconoclasts themselves might probably have been content to “believe and say their prayers,” had not the intolerance of philosophy made them atheists and persecutors.—­The coarse legend of “death is the sleep of eternity,"* is only a compendium of the fine-drawn theories of the more elaborate materialist, and the depositaries of the dead will not corrupt more by the exhibition of this desolating standard, than the libraries of the living by the volumes which hold out the same oblivion to vice, and discouragement to virtue.—­

* Posts, bearing the inscription “la mort est un sommeil eternel,” were erected in many public burying-grounds.—­No other ceremony is observed with the dead than enclosing the body in some rough boards, and sending it off by a couple of porters, (in their usual garb,) attended by a municipal officer.  The latter inscribes on a register the name of the deceased, who is thrown into a grave generally prepared for half a score, and the whole business is finished.

The great experiment of governing a civilized people without religion will now be made; and should the morals, the manners, or happiness of the French, be improved by it, the sectaries of modern philosophy may triumph.  Should it happen otherwise, the Christian will have an additional motive for cherishing his faith:  but even the afflictions of humanity will not, I fear, produce either regret or conviction in his adversary; for the prejudices of philosophers and systemists are incorrigible.*