is nothing connected with his being which requires such serious attention and deep reflection.

By many the mind is regarded as the highest part of the human constitution; they hold that there is nothing beyond the region of the intellectual to be reached or affected that can influence the well-being of society; and even if they admit that there is such a thing in man as the spiritual, they transfer the consideration of it to the priest, not as pertaining to a subject wherein he only has authority to decide, but as belonging to the category of the visionary and doubtful dogmas which he is at liberty to teach or to believe, so long as they are not hurtful to the State. It is a subject which statesmen, with few exceptions, have considered beneath their notice: hence political speculations and systems have failed over and over againhence men who looked for one result have found anotherhence the philosophical theories of those who, seeing society in a condition of evil, have desired and attempted to regenerate it, have produced, when put into practice, monstrous combinations. of sentiment and crime, false philanthropy and bloodshed, the boast that a pure condition of fraternal association has been attained, co-existent with a system of organized murder in its most revolting forms. Such a result as this was the French revolution, at once a fearful lesson to those who entirely forget that there is such a thing as the spirit in man, or who, in lashing it into energetic action, never give a thought to the terrible nature of those capacities which they are awakening. The Church had forgotten her duty: inoculated with that terrible virus of dissipation and infidelity which polluted the whole moral being of the country, she had either neglected altogether the spiritual powers which she possessed, or abused them for the worst purposes of selfish aggrandisement and State dishonesty. The court considered the people as beings of another and a lower world, the only end of whose existence was to furnish the means by which its own base pleasures and pursuits could be maintained. The statesman was oftentimes the venal servant of the court and the scourge of the nation; whilst the few who saw the growing evil either made it the subject of bitter sarcasms, which at once amused and wounded every class, but benefitted none, or sat down in their court dresses, and all the complacency of elegant cultivation, to concoct philosophical theories which it was impossible ever to realize because of their sceptical falsity, and propound them in holiday phrases to a literary coterie, who could give no sound judgment concerning them, because they themselves were too deeply tainted with the moral plague to ascertain its nature, its results, or its remedy.

And all this while the deep ulcers that were festering in the spirits of men were unheeded or undreamed of. The very measures that were taken to cure them, when they first broke forth to view, were the measures of ignorance-the remedy increased the disease. The Church became the victim of the demon which she should have exorcised-the Court, the slave of the ferocious power which it had goaded by oppression into resistance; and the philosopher learned too late the bloodthirsty nature of that spirit which he had evoked, but could not lay. Many noble deeds were done, many noble hearts were broken, in the struggle to avert the final crisis. The chivalry of an old nobility, roused into action, broke through the effeminate restraints of a frivolous fashion; the clergy, startled into repentance, professed their faith, and braved the penalty with dignified and holy meekness; and the philosopher became manly in his eloquent denunciations of the crimes that were committed around him. It was all too late. The spiritual in man had been forgotten by every one whose duty it was to remember its existence and guide its developments; and that which was bestowed by God to be the region of high and holy things—the capacity for receiving and giving blessing-became, through neglect, oppression and abuse, the domain of Satan, and the means by which he multiplied cursing and misery amongst men. Nothing was left to those who had so mistaken themselves and their fellows, but to suffer nobly and with resignation; and if they could not ward off the evil, bear its infliction in a manner to win the sympathy of the good, and leave an instructive lesson to posterity. This they did. When the monarchy fell, it was with graceful dignity; and when the Church became, to all outward appearance, extinct, with a martyr's blood she atoned for past neglect, and with a martyr's prayer, in her last hour, commended herself and her persecutors to God for mercy and forgiveness.

This direful event has left results, the influence of which is increasing yearly, and which will be felt to the latest moment of time. It has engendered principles of evil which before had no definite existence; it has gathered into a system, and given a concentrated energy to the floating theories of political fanaticism, of equality and fraternity, which from time to time have broken forth into action only to be coerced-shaking thrones to their centres, and writing their principles in letters of blood during the struggle. It has brought a spirit into life which no power can lay, whose walk is through the length and breadth of Christendom; whose presence is felt in every class of society, and with whom, ere long, all constituted authority will have to struggle for the mastery, and monarchy for an existence. At

this present moment France is rife with the offspring of the revolution. Its idealists and communists, the disciples of St. Simon and Fourrier, of Lamennais and the Abbè Chatel, though differing from each other in minor details, have yet one common bond of reunion in the dogma of a fraternal condition of society, which must be struggled for, fought for, and suffered for, till it be attained. This dogma is the more dangerous, because it takes a truth of Scripture for its basis, and, professing to possess the only right interpretation of that truth, gives as its exposition a system replete with infidelity and impurity, as impracticable as it is unsound. It, however, owns disciples in almost every rank, and, though to the plain-thinking Englishman it may seem incredible, has engaged in its propagation, in one form or another, some of the highest intelligences in France. Almost all the romance writers, a large and influential class with the active spirits of the masses, and who unquestionably have great talent, put it forward in one form or another, and make their stories subservient in its recommendation. The authoress who writes under the name of George Sand has, for example, many passages in her romances which, whilst they contain some truth, clothe it with such forms of blasphemy as render it in the application a lie, and a lie of a most fearful character. There are two which occur to us on the instant, although, we beg to observe, as regards the first, there is no truth whatever contained that we can discover. They are pertinent to the subject, and we offer them in proof of what has been observed. We have thought well upon the propriety of doing this, for they contain sentiments exceedingly repulsive to a pious mind; but as it is presumed these pages are chiefly read by those whose duty it is to know all the danger with which right and Christian principle is threatened in the present day, and as we wish that the remarks which we make should be borne out by facts, we trust that their insertion here will not be considered as a proof that we have no proper perception of their truly blasphemous character. In part of a novel called "Consuelo," of some length, and very carefully written by the above-named authoress, there is a description of a most improbable scene between the heroine and her lover, a Bohemian nobleman-half madman, half clair voyant. This scene is laid in a cavern under ground, to which this nobleman was in the habit of resorting for periods of time, in the paroxysms of his disease, and whither the lady who had discovered his secret had followed him, through dangers unheard of, in order to win him back to his afflicted family. She becomes a convert to his views, especially those regarding the existence and character of Satan, for

his madness has a great method of philosophy, scepticism, and republicanism, and with him proceeds from one rhapsody to another, till he, seized with a fit of inspiration, puts his thoughts into music, divinely extemporized on the violin, and she, with a kindred wit, interprets them thus:

"Tout à coup il sembla a Consuelo que le violon d'Albert parlait, et qu'il disait par la bouche de Satan : Non le Christ mon fière ne vous a pas aimés plus que je ne vous aime. Il est temps que vous me connaissiez, et qu'en lieu de m'appeler l'ennemi du genre humain vous retrouviez en moi l'ami qui vous à sontenu dans la lutte. Je ne suis pas le Demon; je suis L'Archange de la révolte légitime et le patron de grandes luttes. Comme le Christ je suis le Dieu du pauvre, du faible et de l'opprime. Quand il vous promettait le règne de Dieu sur la terre, quand il vous annonçait son retour parmi vous, il voulait dire qu'après avoir la persecution, vous seriez récompensés, en conquérant avec lui et avec moi la liberté et le bonheur. Cest ensemble que nous devions revenir, et c'est ensemble que nous revenons tellement unis l'un à l'autre que nous ne faisons plus qu'un. C'est lui le divin principe le Dieu de l'esprit, qui est descendu dans les ténèbres où l'ignorance m'avait jeté et où je subissais, dans les flammes du désir et de l'indignation, les mêmes tourments, que lui ont fait endurer sur sa croix les scribes et les pharisiens de tous les temps; me voici pour jamais avec vos enfans: car il a rompu mes châines; il a éteint mon bûcher, il m'a reconcilié avec Dieu et avec vous. Et desormais la ruse et la peur ne seront plus la loi et la partage du faible, mais la fierté et la volonté. Cést lui, Jésus qui est le miséricordieux, le doux, le tendre et le juste: moi je suis le juste aussi; mais je suis le fort, le belliqueux, le sévère, et le persévérant. O peuple, ne reconnais-tu pas celui qui t'a parlé dans le secret de ton cœur, depuis que tu existes, et qui, dans toutes tes détresses t'a soulagé en te disant: Cherche le bonheur, n'y renonce pas! Le bonheur t'est dû, exige le, et tu l'auras! Ne vois tu pas sur mon front toutes tes souffrances et sur mes membres meurtris la cicatrice des fers que tu as porté? Bois le Calice que je t'apporte: tu y'trouveras mêleés a celles du Christ et aux tiennes; tu les sentiras aussi brûlantes et tu les boiras aussi salutaries."

Consuelo (such is the name of the heroine), surprised out of all propriety, is represented as utterly overcome by these words, as throwing herself into the arms of her lover, believing, in the delirium of the moment, that it is Satan himself, and uttering these words, "à toi, à toi, ange de bonheur! à toi et à Dieu pour toujours." In the course of an historical sketch attached to this romance, a history of heresy is attempted, and these

sentences occur:

"Il n'ya qu'une religion, il n'ya qu'une herésie. La religion officielie, l'eglise Constituée a tourjours suivi un même système, la religion secrète celle qui cherche encore à se constituer, cette société idéalé de l'egalité qui commence à la prédication de Jesus qui traverse les Siècles

du Catholicisme sous le nom d'heresie et qui aboutit chez nous jusqu'à la révolution Française pour se reformer et se discuter, à defaut de mieux, dans les clubs Chartistes et dans l'exaltation communiste. Cette religion la est aussi toujours la même quelque forme qúelle ait revêtue, quelque nom dont elle se soit voilée quelque persecution qu'elle ait subie. Voila ce que c'est l'heresie et pas autre chose : une idée essentiellement chrétienne dans son principe, évangélique dans ses revélations successives, révolutionnaire dans ses tentatives, et ses reclamations et non une sterile dispute de mots une orgueilleuse interprètation des textes sacrés, une suggestion de l'esprit satanique, un besoin de vengeance d'aventures et de vanité comme il a plu a l'Église romaine de la definer dans ses requisitoires et ses anathèmes-la doctrine du Christ, la loi de la fraternité sur la terre." This heresy-" Revit aujourd'hui, en partie dans le grande insurrection permanente des Chartistes, et en partie dans les associations profondes et indestructibles du Communisme; les Communistes, ce sont les Vaudois les pauvres de Lyon, ou Leconistes qui faisaient dès le douzième siècle le métier de canules et l'office de gardiens du feu sacré de l'Evangile; ses Chartistes, ce sont le Wickléfistes, qui au quartorzieme siècle, remuaient l'Angleterre et forçaient Henri V. à interrompre plusieurs fois la conquête de la France.' The history of all these sects called heretics—' Cést l'histoire du Joannisme, cést à dire l'interprétation et l'application de l'Evangile fraternal et égalitaire de St. Jean, Cést la doctrine de l'Evangile eternel ou de la religion du St. Esprit qui remplit tout le moyen-âge et qui est la Clef de toutes ses convulsions, de tous ses mystères."

That is to say, Communism and Chartism are pure expositions of scriptural doctrine and evangelical truth! Such are the views of an authoress who, whatever may be the stigma attaching to her private life and conduct, enjoys, with a large class of persons, a great reputation, and not undeservedly, for talent; and whose works are the more to be considered, as they are the careful exposition of a doctrine which is rapidly spreading, and which, with more or less of modification, is held by very many, and especially by the party always existing and always to be dreaded in every state, which finds its interest in any convulsion which may destroy the constituted authority, and whose deficiency in numbers is more than compensated by unity and energy of purpose.

Another peculiar feature of the dogma to which we have alluded is the union of Deism, in its most blasphemous forms, with a strong belief in the existence and agency of the supernatural-a mystic faith, that the perception of the truth, to which these persons lay claim, is the direct result of a divine revelation-how or in what way communicated does not clearly appear. The agency of the supernatural is made use of in the