in the same sacerdotal habits, but, faithful to their God and their country, offer the same sacrifice, and preach the same gospel. These distressing recollections will be engraved by history, they will resound in future ages; and when reason shall surmount extinguished passions, impartial posterity will decide on which side were truth, charity, and justice.

Does not your engraving appear to retrace, not as regards the manner, but the results, what our persecutors have executed? The illusory theories of impiety are falsified by the most decisive experience;. which attests that morality is wavering and without support, if it does not receive it from the hands of religion; that religion is without consistence, if it is not positive, that is to say, founded on facts and on revelation. I conversed on this subject with your countryman, Thomas Paine. Write, said I to him, on political rights, but not on religious matters; your Age of Reason has discovered your incapacity; you will never be able to oppose any thing solid to the excellent refutation of your systems by a crowd of writers, above all by the learned bishop of Landaff.

Some of our persecutors, who styled themselves philosophers, are already thrown into the sewers of history, the rest will be, in their turn. The greater part of those who have survived vent themselves in maledictions over the tomb of Robespierre, that it may forgotten they were his accomplices, his guards, and his banditti. They would be so again, if he and his power were resuscitated. Formerly under grotesque names and cynical dress, they dishonored the cause of liberty; vile Proteuses, they have changed their language, still more than their dress. Formerly they blasphemed against christianity; bigots now, and at no time pious, limited to certain forms, certain trifling customs, neglecting in religion every thing that restrains them, perverting its august truths as their interest may dictate, and from the motives which St. Augustine has developed in so striking a manner in his City of God,* they call themselves christians through policy, because, according to the expression of a modern orator, religion is necessary for the people; and as the secret of their heart always betrays itself more by their conduct than their discourse, the sacred instrument they would pervert is broken in their hands; for among that race always frivolous and without character, that is called Frenchmen, there is not one, even to the servant girl, who, in robbing her master, does not repeat that religion is necessary for the people, on condition that she may be dispensed from having it herself.

* B. 4. c. 32.

Religion, necessary to every individual, is still more so to those magistrates who are the regulators of states. Fatal experience of the misfortunes occasioned by an abandonment of christianity has not yet opened our eyes. We have recourse to a palliative to cure the wounds which have been made by irreligion, and its offspring immorality; they have loosened the bonds of society to such a degree, that they mẹnace it with decomposition, which will be common to many neighboring nations. If ever decrepid Europe makes a step towards moral order, it will be less from love of that, than from lassitude of crime; but it will be under the escort of christianity and in consequence of inevitable catastrophes. In spite of the clouds that cover the future, this epoch may be perceived, though we are unable to predict it in a precise manner, though unable to calculate its term, or its disas

ters.

If the bounds of this letter permitted me, I would oppose to the evils engendered by infidelity the benefits profusely spread by the christian religion; its introduction was the most vast of all revolutions, and the most beautiful, because the most useful to the human race. The cross and the gospel, in preparing us for the happiness of eternity, have civilized the world; virtue and knowledge have every where marched in their train; every region has been abandoned by virtue and knowledge which has lost christianity; those regions have returned to barbarism; witness the church of Africa, illustrious for so many learned men, and which was once one of the most brilliant portions of christendom. Witness Algiers, where you resided two years; such would be the lot which the United States would feel, if ever they should cease to be christians.

And is not this equivalent to what you propose in some lines, and by an engraving, which a disciple of the gospel repels with horror? The attributes of pure christianity are classed among the emblems of prejudices. Where are your proofs? It is in the nature of things, that what is invariably useful should be essentially true; instead of proofs, you give up to derision objects revered by many hundred millions of men, who will not believe you on your word; they will see that your antichristian sentence wants justness; that it is a consequence without premises; that, without reasoning at all, you decide that all the disciples of the gospel reason falsely.

Virtuous minds would sigh to behold calumny, impiety, and lubricity display themselves with effrontery, protected by the liberty of the press; but as we do not know where to place the limits, if we attempt to establish by law repressive measures, this evil would be counterbalanced by others, if our mouths were locked, and our pens crushed by tyranny. The press is free in your country; thus you are not repre

hensible by the law, but condemnable at the tribunal of opinion, the supreme judge of all crimes that offend propriety and justice. Yours offends both.

It offends justice, because it is a gratuitous outrage, that resembles that of the Jesumy at Japan. What would you say, if the attributes of liberty, which are so dear to you, were trampled under foot before your eyes?

It offends propriety, because, in holding out as perjudices the emblems of the christian religion, it is saying to all those who profess it, that they are fools; this compliment addresses itself to the disciples of the gospel in every part of the globe; it addresses itself to the estimable descendants of those catholics, who, flying from British persecution, established in Maryland a state belonging to your confederation; it addresses itself to the venerable Carroll, bishop of Baltimore; you trample on the attributes of his pastoral character. In France, it is true, the nonconformists outrage in this way episcopacy in the person of those pastors, who, faithful to the voice of their consciences, have committed the unpardonable crime of submitting to the laws of their country; this is a sad example to cite, not a model to imitate. Your presbyterian countrymen will perhaps ask, if you have abjured the principles that you professed when you were the chaplain of a regiment in the war of independence.

If to believe in the gospel be a prejudice, permit us to partake of it with the feeble minds of Addison, Abbadie, Arburthnot, Bacon, Berkeley, Barrow, Beattie, Bentley, Boerhaave, Bonnet, Boyle, Blackstone, Clarke, Cullen, Doddridge, Ditton, Forbes, Fothergill, Ferguson, Grotius, Gray, Hervey, Hanway, Hartley, Harrington, Hyde, Haller, Jones, Johnson, Locke, Lardner, Leibnitz, Lyttleton, De Luc, Milton, Newton, Puffendorf, Paley, Prior, Pringle Priestley, Price, Ray, Rabener, Roustan, Robertson, Sherlock, Spenser, Steele, Thomson, Wolfe, Washington, Usher, Woodward, Young, &c. and with those madmen, worthy of pity, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, la Bruyère, Copernicus, Corneille, D'Aguesseau, Descartes, Despréaux, Fènelon, Galileo, Gassendi, Houbigant, Mallebranche, Massillon, Nicole, Pope, Pascal, Racine, Winslow, Winkelman, &c. all sincere catholics; but to speak seriously, it is pleasant to lose ourselves in such a brilliant company.

I must add, that in wishing to undeceive us in regard to what you call prejudices, you err in the choice of means; for conviction can only be the effect of reasoning; man cannot detach his affection from the object most dear to him, unless the motives that support it are destroyed. But if injuries that revolt are substituted for arguments that convince, we are sure to strengthen the adhesion to principles which

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are rooted in the mind and the heart. If to convert a mussulman, instead of proving to him that Mahomet was an imposter, I should commence by placing before his eyes a picture, in which the Koran and the Crescent were trampled under foot, his heart, embittered, would cloud his understanding, and prevent all access to my attempts. Apply these reflections to the true religion, and see if you have not failed entirely in a deplorable design.

Persecution, my dear Barlow, does not consist only in exiling, incarcerating, and assassinating men; Julian invented more cunning, and not less cruel vexations. They have been refined among us at the end of the eighteenth century, in harassing and lacerating the catho lics without cessation, by, repeated invectives, by a multitude of those little means, whose application was continual torture; impious verses, songs, epigrams, caricatures, every thing was made use of. You are very different from such men; but why resemble them in any thing? Your engraving is an offence against the freedom of religion; a sort of persecution which your heart disavows; reflection will bring on regret. Believe me, my friend, that these injured catholics will not make use of reprisals; true piety opens her bosom tó erring brethren, without opening it to error; to enlighten them, she places the torch of truth in the hand of charity. Having but a moment to exist in this world, we should love our fellow men, be benevolent towards all whatever may be their religion, their colour, or their country. Jesus Christ has given us both precept and example in their turn; he displayed alternately firmness and goodness towards the Pharisees; his parable of the Samaritan is a perpetual judgment against persecutors.

If you should say further, that France offers examples worthy of condemnation, and that previous to censuring an American, my zeal should be exercised to convert my countrymen ; far from weakening the objection, I would fortify it. I would say that, in a country where so many truths have returned to their wells, we see printed and circulated freely the obscene poetry of a member of the national institute, and the rhapsodies of romance writers, who serve up afresh impieties so many times refuted. I would say too, that without respect to the first body of the state, which ought to give an example of decency, immorality is authorised, by peopling the garden of the palace with licentious statues, to such a degree that virtuous mothers dare not conduct their children thither.

You see that I am far from avoiding objections; but by my disapprobation of an offence, in which I have no share, and against which my colleague, Lanjuinais, protested vainly in full senate, though with the general assent of the senators, I have reserved to myself the right of telling you, that to recriminate is not to answer; and that what

might be alleged as an example to follow, cannot be but as an abuse to reform. Gorani observes that the licentiousness of painting and sculpture had exercised a disastrous influence over Italy; that the master pieces of the arts had drawn away sound minds from useful and necessary studies, had depraved their manners, enervated their courage, and fomented the most hateful vices.* When public shame is extinct, do not expect to preserve the private virtues; and when religion is publicly insulted, it is a wound to morality, a national calamity.

Many times I have repented having employed so many efforts to defend the arts and those who cultivate them against Vandalism; not that those arts which are called fine, and which are not always good, are bad in their very nature; but, almost always, they are flatterers and corruptors, which, by an inconceivable fatality, precede, bring on, escort, and follow depravation. Even in his time the illustrious Gersont complained of it, to whom France owes a monument, and whom she has almost forgotten; he was grieved to see scandalous pictures, and a libidinous work, the Romance of the Rose, exposed to the eyes of youth. At the moment I am writing, we are menaced with a new edition of it.

What will be the fruit of my remonstrance? You are not one of those men who are afraid to acknowledge that you are wrong. A man is always honoured in doing an act of reparation. I appeal to your loyalty, to your delicacy; this is to put you at strife with yourself.

My soul is oppressed in finding cause of blame in a man in whom I see so much to praise. Your character is not degraded by meanness, like that of the greater part of your brethren the poets; you have not prostituted your talents to adulation; do not tarnish them by incredulity, nor by a sort of persecution. Placed at the summit of the American Parnassus, a creditor of glory, you have sung in beautiful verses that liberty you defended with your arms; you came to render her homage at the bar of the national convention, where, as president, I answered in a manner that accorded with the principles you proclaimed. Our hearts were in unison.

The true foundation of political liberty is in the gospel, for it perpetually reminds men, that, having all proceeded from the same stock, they compose only one family; that there exists among them, not a species of relationship, as has been said in a well known work, but a real consanguinity, whose bond is indistructible. The gospel unceas

See the preface to the Memoires secrets et critiques des cours des gouvernans, des moeurs des principaux etats de l'Italie, by Gorani. Paris 1793. † Vide his works, edit. Dupin. v. ii. p. 291, &c.