They afterwards addicted themselves to Christianity deeply engraven on their all that they had abhorred. Thus, hav-hearts, would be infinitely more power ing detested the profession of arms, they at length engaged in war. The Christians in the time of Dioclesian were as different from those of the time of the apostles, as we are from the Christians of the third { century. ful," &c. Yes, more powerful to prevent their exercise of the sword, to make them tremble at shedding their neighbour's blood, to make them look on life as a burden of which it would be their highest happiness to be relieved. "If," says Bayle, "they were appointed to drive back veteran corps of infantry, or to charge regiments of cuirassiers, they would be seen like sheep in the midst of wolves." I cannot conceive how a mind so enlightened and bold as Montesquieu's, could severely censure another genius much more accurate than his own, and oppose the following just remark made by Bayle," that a society of real Christians might live happily together, but that they would make a bad defence on being at-ing to refute him, he contemplated only tacked by an enemy.” Bayle was perfectly right. Montesquieu did not perceive that, while attempt the mercenary and sanguinary soldiers of "They would," says Montesquieu, the present day, and not the early Chris"be citizens infinitely enlightened on the tians. It would seem as if he had been subject of their duties, and ardently zeal desirous of preventing the unjust accusaous to discharge them. They would be tions which he experienced from the fafully sensible of the rights of natural de-natics, by sacrificing Bayle to them. But fence. The more they thought they owed religion, the more they would think they owed their country. The principles of Christianity deeply engraven on their hearts, would be infinitely more powerful than the false honour of monarchies, the human virtues of republics, or the servile fear which operates under despotism." he gained nothing by it. They are two great men, who appear to be of different opinions, but who, if they had been equally free to speak, would have been found to have the same. "The false honour of monarchies, the human virtues of republics, the servile fear which operates under despotism;" nothing at all of this goes towards the composition of a soldier, as the "Spirit. of Laws" pretends. When we levy a regiment, of whom a quarter part will desert in the course of a fortnight, not one of the men enlisted thinks about the honour of the monarchy: they do not even know what it is. The mercenary troops of the republic of Venice know their country; but nothing about republican virtue, which no one ever speaks of in the place of St. Mark. In one word, I do not believe that there is a single man on the face of the earth who has enlisted in his Surely the author of the "Spirit of Laws" did not reflect upon the words of the gospel, when saying that real Christians would be fully sensible of the rights of natural defence. He did not recollect the command to deliver up the coat after the cloak had been taken; and, after having received a blow upon one cheek, to present the other also. Here the principle of natural defence is most decidedly annihilated. Those whom we call Quakers have always refused to fight; but in the war of 1756, if they had not received assistance from the other English, and suffered that assistance to operate, theyregiment from a principle of virtue. would have been completely crushed. Is it not unquestionable, that men who thought and felt as martyrs would fight very ill as grenadiers? Every sentence of that chapter of the "Spirit of Laws" appears to me false. "The principles of Neither, again, is it out of a servile fear that Turks and Russians fight with the fierceness and rage of lions and tigers. Fear does not inspire courage. Nor is it by devotion that the Russians have de{feated the armies of Mustapha. It would, in my opinion, have been highly desirable that so ingenions a man should have sought for truth rather than display. When we wish to instruct mankind, we ought to forget ourselves, and have nothing in view but truth. ETERNITY. In my youth I admired all the reasonings of Samuel Clarke. I loved his person, although he was a determined Arian as well as Newton, and I still revere his memory, because he was a good man; but the impression which his ideas had stamped on my yet tender brain was effaced when that brain became more firm. I found, for example, that he had contested the eternity of the world with as little ability as he had proved the reality of infinite space. I have so much respect for the book of Genesis, and for the church which adopts it, that I regard it as the only proof of the creation of the world five thousand seven hundred and eighteen years ago, according to the computation of the Latins, and seven thousand and seventy-eight years, according to the Greeks. All antiquity believed matter, at least, to be eternal; and the greatest philosophers attributed eternity also to the arrangement of the universe. They are all mistaken, as we well know; but we may believe, without blasphemy, that the eternal former of all things made other worlds beside ours. EUCHARIST. On this delicate subject, we shall not speak as theologians. Submitting in heart and mind to the religion in which we are born, and the laws under which we live, we shall have nothing to do with controversy; it is too hostile to all religions which it boasts of supporting-to all laws which it makes pretensions to explain, and especially to that harmony which in every period it has banished from the world. One half of Europe anathematises the other on the subject of the Eucharist; and blood has flowed in torrents from the Baltic sea to the foot of the Pyrenees, for nearly two centuries, on account of a single word, which signifies gentle charity. Various nations in this part of the world view with horror the system of transubstantiation. They exclaim against this dogma as the last effort of human folly. They quote the celebrated passage of Cicero, who says that men, having exhausted all the mad extravagancies they are capable of, have yet never entertained the idea of eating the God whom they adore. They say, that as almost all popular opinions are built upon ambiguities and abuse of words, so the system of the Roman Catholics concerning the Eucharist and transubstantiation, is founded solely on an ambiguity; that they have interpreted literally what could only have been meant figuratively; and that for the sake of mere verbal contests, for absolute misconceptions, the world has for six hundred years been drenched in blood. Their preachers in the pulpits, their learned in their publications, and the people in their conversational discussions, incessantly repeat that Jesus Christ did not take his body in his two hands to give his disciples to eat; that a body cannot be in a hundred thousand places at one time, in bread and in wine; that the God who formed the universe cannot consist of bread which is converted into fæces, and of wine which flows off in urine; and that the doctrine may naturally expose Christianity to the derision of the least intelligent, and to the contempt and execration of the rest of mankind. In this opinion the Tillotsons, the Smallridges, the Claudes, the Dailles, the Amyrauts, the Mestrezats, the Dumoulins, the Blondels, and the numberless multitude of the reformers of the sixteenth century, are all agreed; while the peaceable Mahometan, master of Africa, and of the finest part of Asia, smiles with disdain upon our disputes, and the rest of the world are totally ignorant of them. Once again I repeat, that I have nothing to do with controversy. I believe with a lively faith all that the Catholic apostolic religion teaches on the subject of the Eucharist, without comprehending a single word of it. The question is, how to put the greatest restraint upon crimes. The Stoics said that they carried God in their heart. Such is the expression of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, the most virtuous of mankind, and who might almost be called gods upon earth. They understood by the words "I carry God within me," that part of the divine universal soul which animates every intelligent being. Julius II. makes and eats God; but, with his cuirass on his back and his helmet on his head, he imbrues his hands in blood and carnage. Leo X contains God in his body, his mistresses in his arms, and the money extorted by the sale of indulgences, in his own and his sister's coffers. Troll, Archbishop of Upsal, has the senators of Sweden slaughtered before his face, holding a papal bull in his hand. Vangalen, Bishop of Munster, makes war upon all his neighbours, and becomes celebrated for his rapine. The Abbé N is full of God, speaks of nothing but God, imparts God to all the women, or weak and imbecile persons that he can obtain the direction of, and robs his penitents of their property. The Catholic religion goes farther. It says, "You shall have within you physically what the Stoics had metaphysically. Do not set yourselves about enquiring what it is that I give you to eat and drink, or merely to eat. Only believe that what I so give you is God. He is within you. Shall your heart then be defiled by anything unjust or base ?-Behold then men receiving God within them, in the midst of an august ceremonial, by the light of a hundred tapers, under the influence of the most exquisite and enchanting music, and at the footstool of an altar of burnished gold. The imagination is led captive, the soul is rapt in extasy and melted! The votary scarcely breathes; he is detached from every terrestrial object, he is united with God, he is in our flesh, and in our blood! Who will dare, or who even will be able, after this, to commit a single fault, or to entertain even the idea of it? It was clearly impossible to devise a mystery better calculated to retain man-ordinately shared in authority, not only kind in virtue." Yet Louis XI., while receiving God thus within him, poisons his own brother; the Archbishop of Florence, while making God, and the Pazzi while receiving him, assassinate the Medici in the cathedral. Pope Alexander VI., after rising from the bed of his bastard daughter, administers God to Cæsar Borgia, his bastard son, and both destroy by hanging, poison, and the sword, all who are in possession of two acres of land which they find desirable. What are we to conclude from these contradictions? That all these persons never really believed in God; that they still less, if possible, believed that they had eaten his body and drunk his blood; that they never imagined they had swallowed God; that if they had firmly so believed, they never would have committed any of those deliberate crimes; in a word, that this most miraculous preventive of human atrocities has been most ineffective. The more sublime such an idea, the more decidedly is it secretly rejected by human obstinacy. The fact is, that all our grand criminals who have been at the head of government, and those also who have sub never believed that they received God down their throats, but never believed in God at all; at least they had entirely effaced such an idea from their minds. Their contempt for the sacrament which they created or administered was extended at length into a contempt of God himself. What resource, then, have we remaining against depredation, insolence, outrage, calumny, and persecution ?— That of persuading the strong man who oppresses the weak that God really exists. He will, at least, not laugh at this opinion; and, although he may not be- judiciously interposed after condemnalieve that God is within him, he yet maytion, would have soothed the still raging believe that God pervades all nature. spirit of the league; perhaps the outery An incomprehensible mystery has shocked would not then have been incessantly him. But would he be able to say that thundered into the ears of the populace, the existence of a remunerating and the king always protects heretics, the avenging God is an incomprehensible king treats good Catholics shamefully, mystery? Finally, although he does not the king is a miser, the king is an old yield his belief to a Catholic bishop who debauchée, who, at the age of fifty-seven says to him," Behold, that is your God, fell in love with the young Princess of whom a man consecrated by myself has Condé, and forced her husband to fly the put into your mouth;" he may believe kingdom with her. All these embers of the language of all the stars and of all universal discontent would probably not animated beings, at once exclaiming have been alone sufficient to inflame "God is our creator!" the brain of the fanatical feuillant Revaillac. EXECUTION. SECTION I. With respect to what is ordinarily called justice, that is, the practice of killing a man because he has stolen a crown from his master; or burning him, as was the case with Simon Morin, for having YES, we here repeat the observation, a man that is hanged is good for nothing; although some executioner, as much ad-said that he had had conferences with the dicted to quackery as cruelty, may have persuaded the wretched simpletons in his neighbourhood that the fat of a person hanged is a cure for the epilepsy. "we holy spirit; and as was the case also with a mad old Jesuit of the name of Malagrida, for having printed certain conversations which the holy virgin held with St. Cardinal Richlieu, when going to Ly-Anne, her mother, while in the womb; ons to enjoy the spectacle of the execu- this practice, it must be acknowledged, tion of Cinque-Mars and de Thou, was is neither conformable to humanity or informed that the executioner had broken reason, and cannot possibly be of the his leg. "What a dreadful thing it is,' least utility. says he to the chancellor Seguier, We have already enquired what adhave no executioner!" I certainly advantage could ensue to the state from the mit that it must have been a terrible execution of that poor man known under disaster. It was a jewel wanting in his the name of the madman; who, while at crown. At last, however, an old worthy supper with some monks, uttered certain was found, who, after twelve strokes of nonsensical words, and who, instead of the sabre, brought low the head of the being purged and bled, was delivered innocent and philosophic de Thou. over to the gallows? What necessity required this death? We farther ask, whether it was absoWhat good could be derived from the lutely necessary that another madman, judicial assassination of Marsnal de; who was in the body-guards, and who Marillac? gave himself some slight cuts with a hanI will go farther. If Maximilian,ger, like many other impostors, to obtain Duke of Sully, had not compelled that admirable King Henry IV. to yield to the execution of Marshal Biron, who was covered with wounds which had been { received in his service, perhaps llenry would never have suffered assassination { man? bimself; perhaps that act of clemency, remuneration, should be also hanged by the sentence of the parliament? Was this a crime of such great enormity ? Would there have been any imminent danger to society in saving the life of this What necessity could there be that La Barre should have his hand chopped off and his tongue cut out, that he should be put to the question ordinary and extraordinary, and be burnt alive?-Such was the sentence pronounced by the Solons and Lycurguses of Abbeville! What had he done? Had he assassinated his father and mother? Had people reason to apprehend that he would burn down the city? He was accused of want of reverence in some secret circumstances, which the sentence itself does not specify. He had, it was said, sung an old song, of which no one could give an account; and had seen a procession of capuchins pass at a distance without saluting it. It certainly appears as if some people took great delight in what Boileau calls murdering their neighbour in due form and ceremony, and inflicting on him unutterable torments. These people live in the forty-ninth degree of latitude, which is precisely the position of the Iroquois. Let us hope that they may, some time or other, become civilized. tern Dracos, whether there are no such things wanted in their country as highways or crossways, whether there are no uncultivated lands to be broken up, and whether men who are hanged or shot can be of any service? I will not address them on the score of humanity, but of utility: unfortu{nately, they will often attend to neither; and, although M. Beccaria met with the applauses of Europe for having proved that punishments ought only to be proportioned to crimes, the Iroquois soon found out an advocate, paid by a priest, who maintained that to torture, hang, rack, and burn, in all cases whatsoever, was decidedly the best way. SECTION II. But it is England which, more than any other country, has been distinguished for the stern delight of slaughtering men with the pretended sword of the law. Without mentioning the immense number of princes of the blood, peers of the Among this nation of barbarians, there realm, and eminent citizens, who have are always to be found two or three thou- perished by a public death on the scafsand persons of great kindness and amia-fold, it is sufficient to call to mind the bility, possessed of correct taste, and constituting excellent society, These will, at length, polish the others. I should like to ask those who are so fond of erecting gibbets, piles, and scaffolds, and pouring leaden balls through the human brain, whether they are always labouring under the horrors of famine, and whether they kill their fellowcreatures from any apprehension that there are more of them than can be maintained? I was once perfectly horror-struck at seeing a list of deserters made out for the short period merely of eight years. They amounted to sixty thousand. Here were sixty thousand co-patriots, who were to be shot through the head at the beat of drum; and with whom, if well maintained and ably commanded, a whole province might have been added to the kingdom. execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard, Queen Jane Grey, Queen Mary Stuart, and King Charles I., in order to justify the sarcasm which has been frequently applied, that the history of England ought to be written by the executioner. Next to that island, it is alleged that, France is the country in which capital punishments have been most common. shall say nothing of that of Queen Brunehault, for I do not believe it. I pass by innumerable scaffolds, and stop before that of Count Montecuculi, who was cut into quarters in the presence of Francis I. and his whole court, because Francis, the dauphin, had died of a pleurisy. That event occurred in 1536. Charles V., victorious on all the coasts of Europe and Africa, was then ravaging both Provence and Picardy. During that camI would also ask some of these subal-paign which commenced advantageously |