throughout its different ages, and in spite of all its vicissitudes; the great religious crisis in the sixteenth century which divided the Church and Europe between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism; finally, those different antichristian crises, which at different epochs and in different countries have set in question and imperiled Christianity itself, but which dangers it has ever surmounted. The third Meditation will be consecrated to the study of the actual state of the Christian religion, its internal and external condition. I shall retrace the regeneration of Christianity which occurred among us at the commencement of the nineteenth century, both in the Church of Rome and in the Protestant Churches; the impulse imparted to it at the same epoch by the Spiritualistic Philosophy that then began again to flourish, and the movement in the contrary direction which showed itself very remarkably soon afterward in the resurrection of Materialism, of Pantheism, of Skepticism, and in works of historical crit

icism. I shall attempt to determine the idea, and consequently, in my opinion, the fundamental error of these different systems, the avowed and active enemies of Christianity. Finally, in the fourth series of these Meditations I shall endeavor to discriminate and to characterize the future destiny of the Christian religion, and to indicate by what course it is called upon to conquer completely and to sway morally this little corner of the universe termed by us our earth, in which unfold themselves the designs and power of God, just as, doubtless, they do in an infinity of worlds unknown

to us.

I have passed thirty-five years of my life in struggling, on a bustling arena, for the establishment of political liberty and the maintenance of order as established by law. I have learned, in the labors and trials of this struggle, the real worth of Christian faith and of Christian liberty. God permits me, in the repose of my retreat, to consecrate to their

cause what remains to me of life and of strength. It is the most salutary favor and the greatest honor that I can receive from his goodness.

GUIZOT.

VAL-RICHER, June, 1864.