watches by his side, counsels him in his dreams, and protects him from the evil spirit. This heavenly friend is so devoted to his interests that he consents for his sake to be an exile upon earth.

Did there exist among the ancients any thing more admirable than the many customs that prevailed among our religious forefathers? If they discovered the body of a murdered man in a forest, they erected a cross on the spot in token of pity. This cross demanded of the Samaritan a tear for the unfortunate traveller, and of the inhabitant of the faithful city a prayer for his brother. And then, this traveller was, perhaps, a poor stranger, who had fallen at a great distance from his native land, like that illustrious Unknown sacrificed by the hands of men far away from his celestial country! What an intercourse between us and God! What prodigious elevation was thus given to human nature! How astonishing that we should thus discover a resemblance between our fleeting days and the eternal duration of the Sovereign of the universe!

We shall say nothing of those jubilees which, substituted for secular games, plunge all Christendom into the bath of repentance, purify the conscience, and offer a religious amnesty to repenting sinners. Neither shall we relate how, in public calamities, both high and low walked barefoot from church to church, to endeavor to avert the wrath of God. The pastor headed the solemn procession with a cord about his neck, the humble victim devoted for the welfare of his flock. The fear of these evils was not encouraged among the people by an ebony crucifix, a bit of blessed laurel, or an image of the patron saint. How often has the Christian knelt before these religious symbols to ask of God that assistance which could not be obtained from man!

Who has not heard of our Lady of the Woods, who inhabits the aged thorn or the mossy cavity of a spring, and is so celebrated in the hamlet for her miracles? Many a matron will tell you, that after having invoked the good Mary of the Woods she suffered less from the pains of childbirth. The maiden who had lost her lover would often fancy in the moonlight that she saw the spirit of her young betrothed in this solitary spot, or heard his voice in the low murmur of the stream. The doves that drink from these waters have always the power of generation, and the flowers that grow on their borders never cease to bloom.

It was fitting that the tutelar saint of the forest should accomplish effects as tender in their nature as the moss amid which she dwells, and as charming as the fountain that veils her from human sight.

It is particularly in the great events of life that religious customs impart their consolations to the unfortunate. We once were spectators of a shipwreck. The mariners, on reaching the shore, stripped off all their clothes, with the exception of their wet trousers and shirts. They had made a vow to the Virgin during the storm. They repaired in procession to a little chapel dedicated to St. Thomas, preceded by the captain, and followed by the people, who joined them in singing the Ave Maris Stella. The priest said the mass appointed for the shipwrecked, and the sailors hung their garments, dripping with sea-water, as votive offerings, against the walls of the chapel.1 Philosophy may fill her pages with high-sounding words, but we question whether the unfortunate ever go to hang up their garments in her temple.

Death, so poetical because of its bordering upon things immortal, so mysterious on account of its silence, could not but have a thousand ways of announcing itself to the vulgar. Sometimes its token was heard in the ringing of a distant bell; at others, the person whose dissolution drew nigh heard three knocks upon the floor of his chamber. A nun of St. Benedict, on the point of quitting the world, found a crown of white thorn at the entrance of her cell. Did a mother lose her son abroad, her dreams immediately apprised her of this misfortune. Those who withhold their belief in presentiments will never know the secret channels by which two hearts, bound by the ties of love, hold mutual intercourse from one end of the world to the other. Frequently would some cherished departed one appear to a friend on earth, soliciting prayers for the rescue of his soul from the purgatorial flame, and its admission to the company of the elect. Thus did religion accord to friendship some share in the sublime prerogative which belongs only to God, of imparting eternal happi

ness.

Opinions of a different kind, but still of a religious character, inspired feelings of humanity; and such is their simplicity that

I See note II.

they embarrass the writer. To destroy the nest of a swallow, to kill a robin redbreast, a wren, a cricket-the attendant on the rural hearth, a dog grown old in the service of a family, was a deed which never failed, it was said, to be followed by some visitation. From an admirable respect for age, it was thought that persons advanced in years were of propitious influence in a house, and that an old servant brought good luck to his master. Here we meet with some traces of the affecting worship of the Lares, and are reminded of the daughter of Laban carrying her household gods along with her.

The vulgar were persuaded that no person could commit a wicked action without being haunted all the rest of his life by frightful apparitions. Antiquity, wiser than we, would have forborne to destroy these useful accordances of religion, of conscience, and of morality. Neither would it have rejected another opinion, according to which it was deemed certain that every man possessing ill-gotten wealth had entered into a covenant with the spirit of darkness and made over his soul to hell.

Finally, wind, rain, sunshine, the seasons, agriculture, birth, infancy, marriage, old age, death, had all their respective saints and images, and never were people so surrounded with friendly divinities as were the Christian people.

It is not the question now to enter into a rigid examination of these opinions. So far from laying any injunctions on the subject, religion served, on the contrary, to prevent the abuse of them, and to check their extravagancies. The only question is whether their aim be moral, whether they have a stronger tendency than the laws themselves to keep the multitude in the paths. of virtue. What sensible man has any doubt of this? By your incessant declamations against superstition, you will at length open a door for every species of crime. A circumstance that cannot fail to surprise the sophists is, that, amid all the evils. which they will have occasioned, they will not even enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the common man more incredulous. If he shakes off the influence of religion, he will supply its place with monstrous opinions. He will be seized with a terror the more strange as he will be ignorant of its object: he will shudder in a churchyard, where he has set up the inscription, Death is an eternal sleep; and, while affecting to despise the Divine power,

he will go to consult the gipsy, and, trembling, seek his destinies in the motley figures of a card.

ence.

The marvellous, a future state, and hope, are required by man, because he feels himself formed to survive this terrestrial existConjuration, sorcery, are with the vulgar but the instinct of religion, and one of the most striking proofs of the necessity of a public worship. He who believes nothing is not far from believing every thing; you have conjurors when you cease to have prophets, enchantments when you renounce religious ceremonies, and you open the dens of sorcerers when you shut up the temples of the Lord.1

These remarks are confirmed by indisputable facts. Julian the apostate, who thought himself very wise, after rejecting Christianity, was a complete dupe of magicians. Another instance may be mentioned, which it is a greater wonder our author omitted, as it occurred in his own country at a period with which he was well acquainted. The Duke of Orleans, the Regent of France, a hardened infidel, had great faith in astrology. Pope's assertion was not less true than poetical, when he said,

"The godless regent trembled at a star."

Part the Fourth.

WORSHIP.

BOOK I.

CHURCHES, ORNAMENTS, SINGING, PRAYERS, ETC.

CHAPTER I.

OF BELLS.

THE subject which will now occupy us -the worship of the Christian Church-is as interesting as any that we have considered, and forms the concluding part of this work. As we are about to enter the temple, let us first speak of the bell which summons us thither.

To us it seems not a little surprising that a method should have been found, by a single stroke of a hammer, to excite the same sentiment, at one and the same instant, in thousands of hearts, and to make the winds and clouds the bearers of the thoughts of men. Considered merely as harmony, the bell possesses a beauty of the highest kind, that which by artists is styled the grand. Thunder is sublime; but only by its grandeur. Thus it is, also, with the wind, the sea, the volcano, the cataract, or the voice of a whole assembled nation.

With what transport would Pythagoras, who listened to the hammer of the smith, have hearkened to the sound of our bells on the vigil of some religious solemnity! The soul may be moved by the tones of the lyre; but it will not be rapt into enthusiasm as when roused by the thunders of the combat, or when a powerful peal proclaims in the region of the clouds the triumphs of the God of battles.