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the utmost eagerness, regardless whether death shall prove the precursor to permanent happiness or misery, or to a state of “eternal sleep." Never, perhaps, in a Pagan country, was the Epicurean philosophy so systematically reduced to practice as in the country of Voltaire, Buffon, Mirabeau, Condorcet, Helvetius, and Diderot. It cannot be difficult to trace the present demoralization of France to the sceptical and atheistical principles disseminated by such writers, which were adopted in all their extent, and acted upon by the leaders of the first Revolution. Soon after that event, education was altogether proscribed. During the space of five years, from 1791 to 1796, the public instruction of the young was totally set aside, and, of course, they were left to remain entirely ignorant of the facts and doctrines of religion, and of the duties they owe to God and to man. It is easy, therefore, to conceive what must be the intellectual, the moral, and religious condition of those who were born a little before this period, and who now form a considerable portion of the population arrived at the years of manhood. A gentleman at Paris happened to possess a domestic of sense and general intelligence above his station. His master, upon some occasion, used to him the expression, "It is doing as we would be done by,”—the Christian maxim. The young man looked rather surprised: "Yes," (replied the gentleman) "I say, it is the doctrine of the Christian religion, which teaches us not only to do as we would be done by, but also to return good for evil.” “It may be so Sir," (replied he) "but I had the misfortune to be born during the heat of the revolution, when it would have been death to have spoken on the subject of religion; and so soon as I was fifteen years old, I was put into the hands of the drillserjeant, whose first lesson to me was, that as a French soldier, I was to fear neither God nor devil." It is to be hoped, that the rising generation in France is now somewhat improved in intelligence and morality beyond that which sprung up during the demoralizing scenes of the first revolution; but, in spite of all the counteracting efforts that can now be used, another generation, at least, must pass away, before the immoral effects produced by infidel philosophy, and the principles which prevailed during the "reign of terror," can be nearly obliterated.

I shall conclude these sketches with the following account of the consecration of the "Goddess of Reason,"- -one of the most profane and presumptuous mockeries of every thing that is rational or sacred, to be found in the history of mankind.

"The section of the Sans Culottes, declared at the bar of the Convention, November 10, 1793, that they would no longer have priests among them, and that they required the total suppression of all salaries paid to the ministers of religious worship. The petition was followed by a nume

rous procession, which filed off in the ball, ac companied by national music. Surrounded by them, appeared a young woman* of the finest figure, arrayed in the robes of liberty, and seated in a chair, ornamented with leaves and festoons. She was placed opposite the President; and Chaumette, one of the members, said,' Fanaticism has abandoned the place of truth; squint eyed, it could not bear the brilliant light. The people of Paris have taken possession of the temple, which they have regenerated; the Gothic arches which, till this day resounded with lies, now echo with the accents of truth; you see we have not taken for our festivals inanimate idols, it is a chef d'œuvre of nature whom we have arrayed in the habit of liberty; its sacred form has inflamed all hearts. The public has but one cry, "No more altars, no more priests, no other God but the God of nature." We, their magistrates, we accompany them from the temple of truth to the temple of the laws, to celebrate a new liberty, and to request that the cidevant church of Notre Dame be changed into a temple consecrated to reason und truth.' This proposal, being converted into a motion, was immediately decreed; and the Convention afterwards decided, that the citizens of Paris, on this day, continued to deserve well of their country. The Goddess then seated herself by the side of the President, who gave her a fra ternal kiss. The secretaries presented themselves to share the same favour; every one was eager to kiss the new divinity, whom so many salutations did not in the least disconcert. During the ceremony, the orphans of the country, pupils of Bourdon (one of the members) sang a hymn to reason, composed by citizen Moline. The national music played Gosset's hymn to liberty. The Convention then mixed with the people, to celebrate the feast of reason in her new temple. A grand festival was accordingly held in the church of Notre Dame, in honour of this deity. In the middle of the church was erected a mount, and on it a very plain temple, the facade of which bore the following inscription—' a la Philosophie.' The busts of the most celebrated philosophers were placed before the gate of this temple. The torch of truth was in the summit of the mount, upon the altar of Reason, spreading light. The Convention and all the constituted authorities assisted at the ceremony. Two rows of young girls, dressed in white, each wearing a crown of oak leaves, crossed before the altar of reason, at the sound of republican music; each of the girls inclined before the torch, and ascended the summit of the mount. Liberty then came out of the temple of philosophy, towards a throne made of turf, to receive the homage of the republicans of both sexes, who sang a hymn in her praise, extending their arms at the same time towards her.

⚫ Madame Desmoulines, who was afterwards guid lotined.

Liberty ascended afterwards, to return to the temple, and, in re-entering it, she turned about, casting a look of benevolence upon her friends; when she got in, every one expressed with enthusiasm the sensations which the Goddess excited in them by songs of joy; and they swore, never, never to cease to be faithful to her."

Such were the festivities and ceremonies which were prescribed for the installation of this new divinity, and such the shameless folly and daring impiety with which they were accompanied! Such is the Religion of what has been presumptuously called Philosophy, when it has shaken off its allegiance to the Christian Revelation-a religion as inconsistent with the dictates of reason and the common sense of mankind, as it is with the religion of the Bible. Never, in any age, was Philosophy so shamefully degraded, and exposed to the contempt of every rational mind, as when it thus stooped to such absurd foolery and Heaven-daring profanity. Besides the impiety

of the whole of this procedure,-which is almost without a parallel in the annals of the worldthere was an imbecility and a silliness in it, altogether incompatible with those sublime ideas of creation and Providence, which true philosophy, when properly directed, has a tendency to inspire. And how inconsistently, as well as inhumanely, did these worshippers of "liberty," "reason," and "truth," conduct themselves to the representative of their goddess, when, soon after, they doomed the lady, whom they had kissed and adored in the "temple of truth," to expire under the stroke of the guillotine! Such occurrences appear evidently intended by the moral Governor of the world, to admonish us of the danger of separating science from its connexions with revealed religion, and to show us to what dreadful lengths, in impiety and crime, even men of talent will proceed, when the truths of Revelation are set aside, and the principles and moral laws of Christianity are trampled under foot.

PHILOSOPHY

OF A

FUTURE STATE.

BY THOMAS DICK,

AUTHOR OF A VARIETY OF LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATIONS
IN NICHOLSON'S PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, THE ANNALS
OF PHILOSOPHY, ETC. ΣΤΟ.

HARTFORD:

PUBLISHED BY H. F. SUMNER & CO.

NEW-YORK:

BY ROBINSON, PRATT & CO.

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