Primitive Legislation, and of that upon the Theory of Political and Religious Power? It cannot any longer be a matter of doubt; this senseless religion, this madness of the cross, the approaching fall of which has been pronounced by superlative wisdom, is about to be regenerated with added force. The palm of religion thrives always in proportion to the tears which christians shed, as the verdure of the grass is renewed in a spot of land which has been abundantly watered. It was an unworthy error to believe that the gospel was overthrown because it was no longer defended by the prospe rous part of mankind. The strength of christianity lies in the cottage of the poor, and its basis is as durable as the misery of man upon which it is built. "The church,” says Bossuet, in a passage which we might have supposed to emanate from the tenderness of Fénélon, if it had not a more elevated and original turn," the church is the daughter of the Omnipotent, but her father, who sustains her from within, abandons her often to persecution from without; and, after the example of Jesus Christ, she is obliged to exclaim in her agony; My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me !* her husband is the most powerful as well as the most sublime and the most perfect among the sons of men, but she has only heard his enchanting voice, she has only enjoyed his mild and engaging presence for a moment. Suddenly he has taken to flight with a rapid course, and swifter than the fawn of a hind, has ascended to the highest mountains.§ Like a desolate wife the church has done nothing but groan, and the * Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid dereliquisti me ? vocem sponsi. JOANN. iii, 29. gaudio gaudct propter § Fuge dilecte mi, et assimilare capra, hinnuloque cervorum euher montes aromatum. Cant. viii, 14. song of the forsaken turtle* is in her mouth; in short she is a stranger and a wanderer upon the earth, where she is come to gather together the children of God under her wings, and the world who is incessantly labouring to tear them from her does not cease to cross her in her pilgrim. age.t This pilgrimage may be crossed but its completion cannot be prevented.--If the author of the present article had not been already persuaded of this important truth he must have been eonvinced of it now, by the scene passing before his eyes. What is this extraordinary power which leads about a hundred thousand christians upon these ruins? By what prodigy does the cross appear again in triumph in the same city where not long since it was, in horrible derision, dragged in the mud or deluged with blood? Whence does this proscribed solemnity re-appear? What song of mercy has replaced so suddenly the roaring of cannon, and the cries of the christians who are thrown to the earth? Is it the fathers, the mothers, the brothers, the sisters, the children of these victims who pray for the enemies of the faith and whom you behold upon their knees in every direction, at the windows of these ruined houses, or upon the heaps of stones which are yet smoking with the blood of the martyrs? -The mountains, covered with monasteries, not less religious because they are deserted; these two rivers, where the ashes of the confessors of Jesus Christ have so often been thrown; all the places consecrated by the first steps of Christianity among the Gauls; this grotto of St. Pothin;-the catacombs of Irènæus have not beheld greater miracles than those which are ef fected at this moment. If, in 1793, at the moment of the * Vox turturis audita est in terra nostra. Cant. ii, 12. † Funeral oration of M. le Tellier. This was written at Lyons on the day of the festival of Corpus Chr isti. fusillades of Lyons, when the temples were demolished and the priests were massacred; when an ass loaded with the sacred ornaments was led about the streets and the executioner armed with his hatchet accompanied this wor thy parade of reason; if a man had then said: "Before ten years shall have passed away, a Prince of the Church, an Archbishop of Lyons, shall carry the holy sacrament publicly along the same places, accompanied by a numerous clergy, by young maidens cloathed in white; that the ceremony should be preceded and followed by men of all ages and of all professions, carrying flowers and torch es; that the misguided soldiers who had been armed against religion, should appear in this festival to protect it”—If a man had, ten years ago, held such language, he would have passed for a visionary; yet this man would not have told the whole truth; even on the eve of the ce remony, more than ten thousand christians desired to receive the seal of the true faith; the prelate of this great commune appeared like Saint Paul, in the midst of an immense crowd, who demanded of him a sacrament so precious in the times of trial, since it gives the power to confess the gospel. And yet this is not all; deacons have been ordained, and priests have been consecrated! Do they tell us that the new pastors seek glory and fortune? Where are the benefices which await them, the honours which can recompense them for the labours their ministry exacts? A mean alimentary pension, some half ruined presbytery, or some obscure habitation provided by the charity of the faithful-these are the sum of the temptations offered them.-They must moreover expect to be calumniated; they must reckon upon denunciations, upon mortifications of every description; we may say more, should some powerful man withdraw his protection one day, the next, philosophism would extermi. nate the priests under the sword of tolerance, or open again for them the philanthropic deserts of Guiana-Ah! when the children of Aaron fell with their faces upon the earth, when the archbishop, standing before the altar, stretching his hands towards the prostrate Levites pronounced these words Accipe jugum Domini-the force of them penetrated all hearts and filled all eyes with tears. "They have accepted from him this yoke, the yoke of the Lord," and they have found it so much the more light, omnes ejus leve in proportion as men have endeavoured to render it heavy -Thus in spite of the predictions of these oracles of the age, in spite of the progress of the human mind, the church increases and perpetuates itself, according to the oracle, much more to be relied on, of him by whom it was founded. And whatever shall be the storms by which it may yet be assailed it will continue to triumph against the su perior lights of the sophists, as it has triumphed over the darkness of the barbarians. 286 ON THE NEW EDITION OF ROLLIN'S WORKS. THE friends of literature have observed for some time, with extreme pleasure, that those principles of taste which ought never to have been neglected, are every where reviving. By degrees the systems which have been productive of so much evil are abandoned; men venture to examine and combat the unaccountable opinions which have been propagated respecting the literature of the eighteenth century. Philosophy, formerly but too fruitful, seems at present menaced with sterility, while religion produces every day new talents, while it daily sees its disciples multiplied. A symptom not less unequivocal of the return of men's minds to sound and rational ideas, is the reprinting those classical works which the ridiculous ignorance and contempt of the philosophers had rejected. Rollin, for instance, abounding as he does with the treasures of antiquity, was not deemed worthy to serve as a guide to the scholars of an age of superior light, the professors of which themselves, had great occasion to be sent back to school. Men who had passed forty years of their lives I must here be understood to speak only of the age, as taken collectively, not including some men whose talents will always be considered as an honour to France. |