the prayers; and, above all, with the clear and half retract what I am writing, lest I should overmanly exposition of the Gospel given by the mi-step the limits of that tenderness and love, which nister in his sermon. I found I could not supply Christ our Lord enjoins, and which his Gospel what was wanting in her state of mind a deep breathes throughout. I can sincerely declare that conviction of the value of her soul a right sense the unfavorable reports I send you, are most reof sin as committed against Goda holy dread of luctantly made. giving that honor to creatures, which the Almighty Jehovah claims for himself and, above all, a liv-nental states in a curious way: the title-page ing faith in the all-sufficient atonement of that divine Saviour, whose sacrifice is in effect made void by the superstitions and human merits of Popery. I thought it at last most advisable to urge her to read the New Testament, and to attend earnestly to the main essentials of religion, as she found them there enforced; repentance for sin, faith in the merits of our Saviour Christ, love to God and man, and obedience to the divine law, as flowing from these principles. This advice did not irritate her. She admitted the propriety of complying with it; and we continued excellent friends during the remainder of our journey.

constitution, the more we should loosen the bands of priestcraft, and separate them from their present guides. In reply, he assured me that it was his firm opinion that a conscientious Catholic might be a most loyal and faithful subject of a Protestant prince the power of the Pope had for a long time been so purely spiritual, or rather ecclesiastical and formal-nothing, he thought, but a violent party-spirit could in any way make it dangerous. I give you the conversation exactly as it occurred. I am far from dogmatizing, as you know, on so complicated and difficult a point. Popery I hate from the bottom of my heart. But the obvious ill effects of the system now acted upon in Ireland, and the anomalous, inconsistent state of the laws affecting the Catholics, together with the uniform practice of the continental governments, seem to advise the trial of new and more lenient proceedings.

I found my dearest Mrs. W. and my daughter here, pretty well. They arrived from Lyon on Saturday, at noon. The dear boys set off in one of the carriages, for Paris, on Monday morning, because the eldest is called to Oxford, by the commencement of the University term. Thus has it pleased God to preserve and bless us. We follow my sons to-morrow to Paris. Adieu.

"the object of the confidence of the inhabitants of Dijon, but that all the province invokes u." This is the language he uses. The alleged miracles are, like all the Popish ones, more than dubious. For instance, the Swiss besieged Dijon in 1513— they were about to storm the city-the whole town betook itself to pray to the image of the Virgin-the enemies relented, and the siege was raised. In such an event, supposing it to be true, every one sees there is not even a pretence to that broad, direct, and palpable suspension of the powers of nature, open to the view of mankind, which distinguishes the miracles of the Gospel. I have brought the book with me to England.What can one hope for, when such mummeries are obtruded upon France, in the nineteenth century, and after the attacks made by infidelity on our common Christianity?

Two-thirds of the churches of Dijon are shut up and used as storehouses and granaries. The place royale is in the form of a horse-shoe and contains the provincial palace and the ancient house of assembly of the parliament of Burgundy. The palace of the governor general of Burgundy is now occupied by a police office, museum, and library. One of the magnificent staircases is used as a bookseller's shop; the arcades are built up, and used Maison Neuve, department of Cote d'Or, 43 miles as shops likewise. Such are the transformations from Dijon, on the Auxerre and Fontainebleau road which a few years make in the mansions of the to Paris, Wednesday evening, 7 o'clock, Oct. 8.- great. Dijon was the seat of one of the ancient parSuch is the place from which I date my letter to- liaments, and contains now twenty-two thousand night. We all retired to rest last evening, at Di- souls. The Protestants are considered by some jon, between eight and nine. I slept quite well of the common people to be Jews, or rather, as I till six, and then rose to visit the town of Dijon hope, confounded with them, just as they were at the birth-place of Bossuet-before we set off. I Dunkirk; for I cannot imagine any persons actualfirst went to the church of St. Benigne, the spirely to believe the Protestants to be Jews. of which has an elevation of three hundred and But you will be anxious for me to come to the seventy feet. It is one of the most elegant I have great Bossuet-I inquired of several persons ever seen; the spires of Coventry and Worcester where he lived; but was surprised to find no one are the only ones to which I can compare it. As knew any thing about him. At Lichfield every I walked along, I happened to observe on all the child would have pointed out to me the house churches an immense placard. I stopped from where our great English moralist (Dr. Samuel mere curiosity to see what it was. It was an ad-Johnson) was born. At last I discovered the vertisement of a new edition of the history of the miraculous image of Notre Dame at Dijon. I thought this quite piquant; I hurried to the church, and looked all around: a gaudy, embellished building, filled with altars, and pictures, and statues; but no image, that I could discover. I was determined not to be disappointed; and going out I met an elderly lady apparently approaching the church door, and inquired of her if that was the church of the miraculous image. She replied with a manifest feeling of pleasure, that it was; and immediately took me up to an altar in the church, on which was the statue of the Virgin, resembling that of a blackamoor, and decked out with tawdry ornaments.

street which bears his name, Rue de Bossuet. It still took me some time to ascertain the spot of his birth. I went from house to house; not a creature could give me any information: with great difficulty I at length found the place, a bookseller's shop. The bookseller himself was hardly aware of the distinguished person who had formerly inhabited his dwelling. Two hundred years had, in fact, effaced almost all traces of this prodigious genius, except his small chapel. I entered it, and examined every part, not without veneration. The house itself has undergone so many alterations, as to contain only a few rooms of the original building. Bossuet is undoubtedly the first writer whom the French possess; but he I afterwards bought the book: positively it as-is not one of my greatest favorites. I cannot diserts the various miracles performed by this wretched figure. Nay, more, indulgences are granted to all who worship this image, and a society is formed to celebrate feasts to her honor. As the image is black, the author attempts to prove, very gravely, that the Virgin Mary was of a swarthy complexion, and applies to her the mystical words of the Canticles, "I am black, but comely." He supposes the image to be of the eleventh century. He affirms that it is not only

vest my mind of his harsh treatment of the amiable Fénélon. His haughty domineering spirit, also, as he acquired weight in the councils of France, and the share which I cannot but think he took, notwithstanding the apologies of his biographer, Bausset, in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, have left an unfavorable impression on my mind as to his whole character.

But his sermons, which were not prepared for publication, and are the first effusions of his heart

the true benefactors of mankind live in the memories of men; their praise takes root, and spreads around and flourishes in perpetual bloom; and if truly Christian principles have guided their conduct, the love of their fellow-creatures is crowned by the favor and approbation of God.

But the most striking lesson I have received on this subject is in the superb château of Fontaineoleau, where we now are. As soon as we arrived here (at four this afternoon,) I went to visit this celebrated palace. All Europe is familiar with it by name; it is an immense mass of buildings, containing five squares or courts; almost like a town. It is mentioned in history as a royal palace ever since the thirteenth century; but it is indebted for its chief extension and improvement to Francis I. It was a favorite residence of Francis I. Henry IV. Louis XIV. and Bonaparte, just the four persons most celebrated in French history. There is a spot where Henry IV. is said to have held his secret councils. The Pope, who is just dead, was imprisoned here by Bonaparte for a year and a half. The conscientious resist ance which he made to the demands of the usurper, cast a splendor around his character. We walked through the suite of apartments, and saw his library, chapel, saloon, &c. The altar of the room which he used as his chapel is now set aside and marked by an inscription. The count d'Artois (now king) makes use of the same rooms, and had left them only the day before yesterday: he comes to hunt in the forest, of thirty-four thousand acres (twelve leagues,) surrounding the château.

But I hasten to mention, what was the most affecting circumstance, that I saw the very table on which Bonaparte signed his abdication, April, 1814, in the very room where he sat, and adjoining the very bed-room in which he slept. Fontainebleau was his favorite palace. Now all his pictures are removed, and every trace of him effaced-what a lesson! I was struck with a large model of the city of Madrid placed in the ball-room, which Bonaparte ordered to be begun in 1802, and which took the architect six years to finish. The very source of his overthrow seems to have been a darling object, years before his first invasion of Spain in 1808!

manifest in all his great enterprises, that you do not wonder that his name is still everywhere revered. Then the diversity and extent of his knowledge, and the unbounded range of the objects of his attention, increase one's surprise. War, commerce, the arts, science, literature, the adorning of cities and towns, the education of youth, religion itself as an instrument of government, every thing seemed to be within his grasp, or to subserve his ruling purposes. He brought, in fact, royalty and talent into such close contact, that there was some danger of men beginning to estimate the value of a sceptre by the mere ability of the hand that wielded it.

The unfavorable tendency of this seductive union of splendid vice and successful ambition, on the public morals and the religious habits of Europe, is obvious-it debases the best principles of the heart. Of Bonaparte, as an unconscious instrument of Divine Providence for scourging guilty nations, for shaking the papacy to its base, and arousing those dormant energies in the mass of the population of Europe, which may probably issue in the general diffusion of a reasonable liberty, and of all the blessings of the glorious Gospel of Christ, I will not trust myself to speak. This view, though correct perhaps, has been too exclusively taken already by religious persons. They have allowed their horror of individual crime, and even their sense of personal responsibility to be lessened, by mingling this question with the supposed purposes of the divine Providence-a mistake infinitely pernicious. A humble reference, indeed, of every event after it has occurred and the issue is known, to the sovereign and mysterious government of God, is a clearly i Scriptural duty; but to applaud or extenuate the guilt of man, and help on a course of criminal ambition, on the ground of its conceived agreement with the order of prophecy and the secret will of God, is a presumptuous and fatal error. But I check myself.

The country through which we have passed to-day has been tolerably fine; but as we are now travelling north, just at the turn of the year, we feel excessively cold. As we passed through Sens, we looked up with interest to the cathedral where the pious and devotional Bernard, the last History will soon sit in judgment on this extra- of the fathers of the church, refuted, in 1140, the ordinary man. His skepticism as to all religious doctrines of Abelard. This celebrated heretic, truth, his unbounded ambition, the fury of his pas- you may remember, had challenged St. Bernard sions, his waste of human life and happiness in to the conference. The saint went to it in Christhe prosecution of his projects, the injustice and tian meekness and fear. As soon as the extracts treachery of his invasions, the iron yoke which from Abelard's writings had been read before the he imposed on the subject nations, his unmitigated audience (where the king of France, Louis VII. hatred of England, his many individual acts of was present, with his nobles, and the prelates cruelty and blood, are points now generally ad- and clergy of the diocese,) Abelard was overmitted. But it is impossible to travel on the con-whelmed with confusion, at being thus confronted tinent without being compelled to witness the with his own writings, and suddenly left the asproofs of his admirable policy, and of his zeal to sembly. His errors were then unanimously conpromote, in many respects, the welfare and intellectual advancement of the people over whom he reigned. Not to dwell on the liberty of public worship which he nobly granted, from whatever motive, to the Protestants of every confession: there is something so splendid in his national works, there are so many monuments of his legislative wisdom, so many traits of grandeur in his projects, and such a hardihood and perseverance

demned. There is something gratifying in visiting the spot where seven centuries before, the name and grace of our Lord Jesus were thus triumphant. Many similar cases are recorded of the daring leaders of heresies being confused and struck dumb, as it were, at the simple exposition of their own tenets, in the presence of the holy and humble disciples of Christ, armed with the sacred Scriptures only.

We have now passed through about sixty miles from this interminable letter at so late an hour, of vineyards. The vines are short, planted in that I am not over-fatigued with my journey. rows, and supported by sticks; not by treillises Adieu. and arbors as in Italy. As the vintage is approaching, persons are set to guard the grapes. They are chiefly red in this part of the country. The costume of the women is not remarkable: no bonnets are worn on any part of the continent, except by the higher classes. The female peasants here wear a colored handkerchief wrapped round the head in the form of a turban, often of a red or scarlet color. The men affect a dirty, shabby, finery; a beggar comes up to you with a military cocked hat; a stable-boy has a pigtail, and perhaps powdered hair, ear-rings, and generally a dirty night-cap; the boots of the postillions are of enormous and lumbering size; some to day were ribbed with iron, and actually made the feet of the poor rider swing about, instead of his being able to guide them; then an undressed sheep's-skin with all its wool, enveloping the knees, is a further addition to his burden.

The agriculture still appears wretched. Almost all one common land. A horse, a mule, an ass, draw the same plough, which a woman drives, whilst a man guides the ploughshare. On the roads, too, you meet a wagon heavily laden, with four large fine horses like ours in England, and then an ass in front, leader of the train; and this ass, a mean, half-starved creature. The fact is, the proprietors bring out every animal they possess of every species, when they have goods to transport from place to place. The number of beggars is shocking; their diseased, distorted appearance is often such, that I am obliged to give them something before we can get out of the carriage. The dirt, untidiness, misery, in the private habits of the innkeepers and ordinary inhabitants of the continent, German, Swiss, Italian, French, are not to be described on paper: one cannot account for it: if you go into their rooms, their kitchens, their pantries, you are quite disgusted with the ill savor. The interior of the abodes of the nobility and gentry is often neat and elegant, and I have been in private houses quite as comfortable as any in England; and generally, perhaps, things are gradually more and more arranged on the plan of English cleanliness and simplicity. But I speak of the inns and houses we meet with in travelling.

To many of these inconveniences, however, one soon becomes accustomed; others are avoided in the better lodgings and inns; the rest you submit to from dire necessity. The freedom of the manners of the people, and their notions of equality with you, at first seem repulsive, but afterwards appear so clearly to spring from mere simplicity, that you forgive it. I am happy to say, that I have found the Catholic peasants willing enough to receive our religious tracts; and that when I talk with them, they admit what I say on the foundations of Christianity.* You may judge

* As we were changing horses at a village on our way to Boulogne, Oct. 29, the carriage was, in three minutes, literally surrounded with villagers, who had heard we had tracts. At least thirty or forty of the separate homilies in French, of the Prayer-Book and Homily Society, are now diligently read, as I trust, by these poor people. Some of them asked

Paris, Hotel de Bristol, Place Vendome, halfpast two, Saturday, Oct. 11, about 2772 miles from London by our route.*-Through God's goodness we are safe at Paris. We arrived here at halfpast one o'clock. We left Fontainebleau a little before eight, and performed the journey of forty miles in less than six hours. The day has been rather wet; but as we approached Paris it cleared up, and we had a fine view of that noble city as we drove through it. We are at the Place Vendôme, a charming situation, close to the gardens of the Thuilleries. We found our dear boys, and my brother who is here, quite well. My son will bring this letter with him, which will most probably close this series of journal-like epistles, which I had no idea would ever have extended to such a length. If they have gratified my dear and excellent aged mother and yourself, in any degree proportioned to the interest I have gradually felt in writing them, I shall most truly rejoice. Whatever can lessen the pain of separation to a parent so dear to me, affords me a double pleasure. May it please God, to permit me to rejoin you in England in peace, and to retain the recollection of the many important lessons I have learned during my tour, together with that sense of gratitude which the uninterrupted blessings I have received during the course of it, should so deeply impress upon my heart.

I am your affectionate

LETTER XVIII.

Brightm, April 14, 1824.

D. W.

Paris Bible Society-Deaf and Dumb InstitutionFrench Preachers-King's Almoner-Nobleman -Translation of Scott-Friends to whom Author was introduced-Baron de Sacy-Count D'Hauterive-Marquis de Jaucourt-Reflections on the whole Tour: 1st, Supreme Providence of God2d, Opposite Evils of Superstition and Infidelity-3d, Scenes of Reformers' laborers-Luther-Beza -Bucer-Ecolampadins - Bullinger-Authenticity of 1 John v. 7, 8.-4th, Duty of advancing the Age of Charity-5th, Importance of every traveller being active-Advice to Invalids-Anecdotes -6th, Gratitude to God-Revocation of the Edict of Nantes-Origin of Vaudois-Expulsion from Valleys-Return-Need of Aid-7th, Prayer for Grace of Holy Spirit.

BRIGHTON, Sussex, April 14, 1824.

MY DEAREST SISTER-I at length begin the letter which you were so anxious I should have

Mrs. W. if the tracts were good for Catholics: she replied, they were particularly suited for them. The scene was really quite affecting. I forget the name of the village. It was not far from Paris. The swiftness with which the news of our having tracts spread from the persons to whom we first gave them, was surprising.

The direct route from London to Paris is about 300 miles.