TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT.

LETTER I.

Calais, June 2d.-Gand, June 23, 1823.

Mary quite appals the mind; the worship of our
Saviour is comparatively forgotten. In fact, the
Virgin seems almost to engross the veneration of
the Papist, and to supersede every thing else.

On Thursday we set off for Mount Cassel, a Dover-Dunkirk-Pave-Mount Cassel-General beautiful spot, seven leagues from Dunkirk, from Vaudamme Lille - Duke of Marlborough the lofty summit of which thirty-two towns and Courtray--Pulpits--Sunday at Gand-Popery-four hundred villages are said to be visible, though Foreign Travel-King of England.

GHENT, Saturday, June 21st, 1823.

WE are now fixed, my dear sister, for the Sunday; and, therefore, I have leisure to give my beloved mother and you some account of our movements. We arrived this morning at Gand, or Ghent, in the kingdom of the Netherlands, about eighteen leagues from Ostend. We had a delightful drive to Dover on Monday, and found good accommodations at the Union Hotel. Our passage to Calais in the steam vessel on Tuesday was calm and favorable. We almost all suffered from sea-sickness; but by four o'clock we sat down to dinner in excellent spirits at the Bourbon Hotel at Calais, and began to forget our troubles. It was late on Tuesday evening before we had hired two carriages for our tour; for we found that one would be inconvenient and unsafe. About eleven o'clock on Wednesday, we were on our way to the Rhine. The road annoyed us a good deal, being paved with large rough stones; and the wind was not less unpleasant, blowing fresh from the sea. We passed Gravelines, a place of considerable strength, with five lines of fortification. We started involuntarily at driving, for the first time in our lives, through the formidable works, and hearing the rattling of the iron draw-bridges under the wheels of the carriages, and hardly believed ourselves safe.

About five we reached Dunkirk, formerly the object of so much prevarication and perfidy on the part of the court of France. It is a large, noble town, with a fine port, a handsome church, streets spacious and clean, and the appearance of a good deal of trade. There is a great air of comfort and neatness about this part of French Flanders; but the most deplorable superstitions are prevalent every where. Enormous, ill-formed crucifixes stare you in the face on the public roads: the figure of our blessed Lord being exhibited in the most forbidding, and even disgusting forms imaginable. And the moment you enter into conversation with the people, you are surprised and affected at the degree of ignorance and superstition which they betray. At this town, some of the peasants we talked with actually called the Protestants Jews, confounding them indiscriminately with all who reject the Roman Catholic faith. The adoration paid to the image of the Virgin

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I could not discern near so many. The view, however, was magnificent. A vast panorama stretched all around. Nature was arrayed in her most beautiful attire, and the eye was delighted in attempting to trace out the variegated wonders of the spectacle. On one side of the hill, towards its foot, General Vaudamme has erected a noble edifice, and laid out a considerable space of ground in gardens and pleasure walks. The spoils of war are displayed in different parts with much taste; but I confess the reflections they awakened in my mind, very much lessened my admiration of them: I could not help thinking of the injustice and cruelty with which most of them were acquired. No glory is solid which violates the first principles of morals.

We reached the celebrated town of Lille about nine in the evening. It was almost dark, and we were afraid the gates would have been shut. It contains sixty-two thousand inhabitants; its works render it a fortress of the first rank, and its citadel is second to none in Europe. The Duke of Marlborough's siege is perhaps the best encomium on these works. Indeed, what mingled recollections are excited in the mind, when travelling over these scenes of former conflict and glory! An English family driving peacefully and undisturbed through Dunkirk or Lille, is quite an important event, when one remembers the history of the two last centuries; and the indignation or alarm which the very names of these towns kindled in the breasts of our forefathers. Thank God for those national mercies which are connected with the annals, however mournful in themselves, of past warfare! The preservation of the Protestant religion in Europe, and the establishment of that religion, and of all the other blessings of our glorious revolution of 1688, in England, where the effects of the hard-fought fields of the incomparable British commander-I said incomparable, but I check myself, for the splendid triumphs of WELLINGTON, place him on a level with England's greatest captains.

I called on the Protestant minister at Lilleonly about two hundred and fifty Protestantsfeeble, alarmed, dejected-Popery surrounding and watching them with a jealous eye-the French government contracting their privileges the spirit of the Reformation almost fled. Still there is a Bible Society, which is always a seed

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of future blessings. The place is famous for its | This accident detained us two hours on the road, manufactures. The men gain three or four francs and will keep us here, perhaps, over Sunday: a day (the franc is now worth ninepence or nine- otherwise we should have reached Antwerp topence halfpenny English,) the women one franc, night. The post does not go out till Tuesday, so and the children nearly the same. Food is about that I may add a word or two to-morrow, or Mona third part cheaper than in London. The wo-day. men are without bonnets; a sort of high cap supplies the place of them; the wooden shoe is

common.

We came on Friday to Courtray, a beautifully neat town; but, alas! the whole place seemed given up to superstition. Lamps are suspended throughout the streets before the images of the Virgin, as if she were a guardian deity. In England we have little idea of the state of things in Catholic Europe, or of our own blessings.

Gand, Sunday Night, June 22d.-We found to-day an English service at the Protestant church. The prayers were well read, and the sermon was tolerable. The clergyman dined with us after church, and gave us a great deal of useful information. He was a pleasant, and, I hope, a pious man. As there was no Protestant service in the afternoon, I went to one of the Catholic churches. It was the first time I had ever witnessed the full display of Popish ceremonies. Really the procesHere, as well as at Gand and a village lying sions, prostrations, bells, incense, music, chauntbetween them, we have seen some of those fine ings, &c. made up a sort of stage-effect, of which pulpits which are so much admired, and so justly, I had had no conception. It seemed to me to be just in the Netherlands. You see I am adverting to a calculated to deceive mankind. Animal emotion professional topic-every one understands best and bodily services were put for faith and the what relates to his own calling. One pulpit re- obedience of the heart. The senses were charmed sembled a palm tree, the trunk concealing within and seduced, instead of the understanding being it the stairs; the foliage forming the sounding-informed, and the passions subdued. Every thing board, and an immense sort of pumpkin the pulpit was not merely unfavorable to spiritual worship, itself, which an angel supported underneath. The next was sustained by four female figures as large as life; the sounding-board was surmounted by a cherub raising the cross; angels stooping around to admire. The third was almost entirely of the finest white marble; an angel underneath opened the Bible to an old man, at these striking words, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life." Another angel at the sounding-board was blowing the trumpet of the Gospel; whilst a third was sustaining the cross.

If any thing like pure doctrine were delivered from these pulpits, all would be well. But what a contrast is there between the magnificent pulpits and the mean and unworthy tenets inculcated from them! We are really quite melancholy at witnessing the scenes around us. It seems wholly unaccountable, how men, with the New Testament in their hands, should be deluded and bound down by so gross an imposture as Popery. But I forget myself; the New Testament is not in their hands. The Pope first shuts that sacred book, and then imposes his own traditions. And besides, the Scriptures represent Popery as the "power of error," as "a strong delusion," as "the deceivableness of unrighteousness," as "the working of Satan with signs and lying wonders," as a judicial blindness for the neglect and abuse of light and knowledge, "because men loved not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." There is accordingly a fixed, unalterable attachment to Popery in the minds of the people, a kind of devoted, unsuspecting allegiance, "a bowing down of the soul," that their spiritual tyrants "may go over.”

but almost irreconcilable with it. Still the diligent attention of these poor people to their ceremonies, and their apparent devotion and seriousness in the performance of their religious duties, are examples to those who boast a purer creed. We never entered a town, but many were at prayers. Yesterday evening the churches were filled. To-day you can scarcely enter them for the crowd. The Catholics have no idea of being called Christians, and yet neglecting the public worship which Christianity enjoins. The common people, at least, are sincere and in earnest. Their principles are obscure and superstitious, but they are firmly fixed in their minds, and they act upon them.

It is difficult for a Protestant traveller to recover from the surprise excited by these degenerate forms of religion, and to divest himself so far of his habitual associations as calmly to weigh all the effects and circumstances of the system which he is contemplating. Unquestionably, large allowances are to be made for individual piety, under the disadvantages of early habit and education, in a Catholic country. But I must say, that Popery, as a whole, disgusts me more now I see it in act, than when I had merely read of it. Undoubtedly, its worst and most prominent feature is, the idolatry of the Virgin Mary; an immediate consequence of this is, the indirect or open denial of all the chief doctrines of the Gospel; the corruption of the rule of Christian morals* follows al

As to the denial of Christian DOCTRINE, hear the language of Luther: "In confession, the Papists make no mention of faith, or the merits of Christ, but only enjoin human satisfactions and merits; as But I must bid you farewell for to-night. We may be seen in the following form of absolution, have come forty-five leagues, about one hundred which the monks use, and those the most devout and forty-four English miles from Calais. One of amongst them, and which I willingly copy out, that our carriages gave way at Vive St. Eloi, about posterity may understand the infinite and ineffable abominations of Popery. seven miles from Courtray, a bar of iron behind" May God spare thee, Brother, being broken through by the pavé. We paid four francs for some cords to repair it, which were worth five sous-about sixteen times their value.

"The merit of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Mary, always a virgin, and of all the saints, the merit of your order, the

most of course; and the effect of all this is, the down constantly; sometimes the first day; and tacit but certain encouragement which is given generally before the end of the week. We were to skepticism and infidelity. I leave out a hundred informed at Lille, that when his majesty the other topics-indulgences-transubstantiation king of England passed through, the year before infallibility-traditions-persecution-exclusion last, on his way to Hanover, the royal carriage

from salvation of all not within its pale, &c. &c. Thank God for the Reformation!

In the evening we had service in our familythe evening prayers of our church, and a ser:non. I was much inclined to offer to preach this morning at the English service; but I abstained from a sense of duty-my health is now my first object. My heart and thoughts have been continually at St. John's.*

Gand, June 23d. Monday morning.-We have had an excellent night-all well to-day. We are now going to visit the principal curiosities of this ancient town; and shall probably set off for Antwerp in the afternoon. To-morrow we hope to be at Brussels, and on Wednesday to be pressing on towards the Rhine, the magnificent scenery of which river is a great attraction to us. We mean to enter Switzerland by Schaffhausen. Our movements are too rapid to derive any thing like the full advantages of what is called foreign travel. We are come out only for our health. Still we make all the observations we are able, on the habits and

customs, the language and government, the policies and religion of different people. We try to study and contemplate men, as Bishop Hurd, I think, expresses it, as they present themselves on the great stage of the world, in various forms, and / under different appearances; and we compare every thing with what we have seen or read at home. All this will enlarge, as I hope, our minds, without too much dissipating the attention. It will also tend to lessen undue national prejudices. It will teach us to appreciate the blessings of a free government and a pure religion, and will send us home better fitted to discharge our ordinary duties, and more eager to communicate spiritual benefit to others.

broke down just at the entrance of the town, and that the king was glad to accept the offer of a French nobleman, who made a tender of his own. Farewell.

Believe me your affectionate Brother,

LETTER II.

D. W.

Brussels, June 27.—Liege, July 1, 1823.

Gand-Nunnery-Chrysostom--Louis XVIII.—
Lord Gambier-Antwerp-Bonaparte-Scheld
Brussels-St. Gudule-Popery--The Martyr
Tyndale-Namur-Village of Waterloo--King
of England-Coster-Battle of Waterloo-Huy-
Liege.

BRUSSELS, Friday, June 27, 1823.

Ghent, on Monday, June 23. I begin a second MY DEAR SISTER-I sent off my first letter from letter against the next post-day. We took our It stands upon twenty-six islands, connected by view of the city of Ghent on Monday morning.— three hundred small wooden bridges. It has above sixty thousand inhabitants. A nunnery, where six or seven hundred females maintain themselves by spinning, and other like works, much gratified us. There is less of superstition in this establishment, and more of obvious usefulness, than in any united, as they ought to be. The nuns are the Charity and diligence seem nurses of the whole town, making it their business to visit and assist the sick. The public liI should tell you that the roads are shocking.brary is one of the finest buildings in Europe; enIndeed, I need not say this, after having mention- tirely of black and white marble. An inscription, taken from St. Chrysostom, very much pleased ed the pavé; for this forms all the middle part of the roads, and is beyond measure worse than theme, Lectio Scripturarum munitio est adversus stones of London streets, or those on our Cheshire peccatum; "The reading of the Scriptures is the defence against sin"-no obscure testimony aand Lancashire roads, whilst on each side you have commonly a deep sand. Carriages break gainst the present practice of the church of Rome.

weight of your religious duties, the humility of your confession, the contrition of your heart, the good works which you have done and will do for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, obtain for thee the remission of thy sins, the increase of merit and grace, and

the reward of eternal life. Amen.

I have yet seen.

The Cathedral is sumptuous and superstitious beyond all imagination. We ascended the tower by four hundred and sixty-four steps, and thence obtained a rich coup-d'œil of the whole city. It has all the marks of departed grandeur. It was once the rival of Paris, and the capital of the Belgic provinces. It boasted of being the birth-place Comm. in Gal. p. 117. Ed. Witenberg, 1535. of Charles the Fifth, and of containing the largest Of the corruption of the RULE OF DUTY, let the Je-area of any city on the Continent.* It has now suits stand as witnesses. Who can have read Pas- a dull and deserted appearance. Its power and cal's Provincial Letters without having been asto- glory are gone. Other cities eclipse its fame. It nished at the profligacy of their code of morals, or is thus that all earthly distinctions fade away, and rather at the virtual overthrow of uprightness, pu- that legislators are taught that the proudest emirity, and truth amongst men, which that code occasions and patronizes; and on which their conduct, nence of national prosperity may be undermined as an order, for nearly three hundred years, has been and destroyed. Gand has acquired a temporary too frequently the comment? interest of late, from Louis XVIII. having fled to it during the usurpation of the hundred days; and from our brave Admiral Lord Gambier having

I say nothing of the worship of the Virgin, or the secret prevalence of infidelity, because these evils are acknowledged.

* St. John's, Bedford Row, London, at that time the author's chapel.

The circuit of the walls is little less than fifteen miles.

here met the American Commissioners, and concluded the late treaty of peace.

The royal palaces at Brussels and at Lacken, The three miles from the town, are pleasing. chief church of St. Gudule is, like all the other Catholic churches, loaded with images of saints and the Virgin. It has sixteen chapels. A priest showed us the chief curiosities, and told us, with perfect sangfroid, that some Jews having, four centuries ago, stolen the host from the church and stabbed it, blood miraculously issued from it and destroyed them! The pulpit here again is exquisite; it is supported by figures of Adam and Eve driven out of Eden by an angel, with Death triumphing over their ruin. The stairs and back of the pulpit represent the garden of Eden, with the different animals around. The sounding board represents the descent of the Holy Spirit, and is surmounted by our Saviour, and what always accompanies him, the Virgin. The museum and li

At two, our carriages being repaired, we set off for Antwerp; eleven leagues, thirty miles English. As we approached it, t: magnificent tower of the Cathedral appeared irectly in our view-466 feet high, of the most elicate architecture, and rising at the top to the finest point imaginableone of the most splendid things of the kind in Europe. The Scheld river, however, flowing between us and the city, we had to pass a quarter of a league in a ferry-boat before we could reach it. As we walked up to the inn, gaudy images of the Virgin offended us at the corner of almost every street; forty or fifty of these, with lamps suspended before them, are scattered over the city, and priests and friars meet you at every turn. The town is most handsome and noble, like the former capital of European commerce. The har-brary are fine; one hundred thousand volumes, bor can contain a thousand vessels. The Scheld here seemed to me broader than our Thames at London; it flows close up to the place. We saw a beautiful pulpit, in the church of St. James, supported by female figures as large as life, representing Truth, Faith, Theology, and Learning; an union excellent and comely. It requires only that these should be practically embodied in the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church, to produce a second Reformation.

But what most interested us were the extensive docks and naval storehouses begun by Bonaparte in 1803, and carried on till the period of his fall. These were to surpass all that Europe could produce, and were to contribute to the overthrow of British commerce and British power. It is with a mixture of surprise and triumph that Englishmen survey the defeated schemes and half-accomplished projects of that extraordinary man, and most bitter enemy of their country.

and many exquisite pictures of Rubens. We here saw the first book printed at Brussels, in the year 1476, entitled Speculum Conscientiæ.

We have been introduced to a very pious Protestant gentleman, who has shown us the greatest kindness. To him we owe the obligation of examining our carriages, and recommending us to a respectabie coachmaker. We have been sadly imposed upon. An Englishman should, if possi ble obtain an introduction to some merchant at Calais or Brussels, or he will probably be put off with miserable, ruined vehicles, decked up for the occasion, which will fail him, as ours have done, the very first day or two of his journey. This gentieman talked to us much on the state of religion. He loves England. He considers that things are rather improving upon the whole here; still the gross, heavy superstition of Popery weighs down the consciences of men, and darkens the fair front of Christianity. Bonaparte is the idol, and the present government unpopular; but Popery, after all, is the permanent obstacle to religious improvement. My friend ardently hopes, as I am sure I do, that the pure truth of the Gospel will once more spread through Europe; and silently, but effectually, dissipate all anti-christian errors, whether on the side of infidelity or superstition.

At three the next day, Tuesday, June 24, we drove off to Brussels, where we arrived at nine in the evening. On our way we passed through Villeforte, where our English Reformer, Tyndale, is said to have been imprisoned. He was afterwards burnt by the procurator of the emperor's court at Brussels, in 1536. His crime was the translation of the New Testament into English! Namur, Sunday, June 29.—A city almost enThis is the first trace we have seen of that noble tirely Roman Catholic! Twenty thousand souls, army of martyrs to whose labors and sufferings and scarcely a Protestant family! Not so much we owe the blessings of the Reformation. We as a single sermon that I could hear of, in any of have been now detained at Brussels three days the parish churches throughout the day, for the for repairing a second time the carriages-dislo-people of the town! Thank God, the military cated, weakened, shattered almost, with these from Holland and Switzerland have Protestant pavés. The city is beautifully situated, partly on chaplains and services in a chapel built for them a hill and partly in the valley; it has one hundred by the present King of the Netherlands, who is thousand inhabitants, with boulevards encircling himself, as you know, of the Protestant religion. it, which will, when finished, be about six miles As soon as breakfast was over, we had the mornin extent. The chamber of the Etats Généraux, ing prayers of our own church and a sermon; our or States General, is really quite charming, much more elegant and commodious than our English house of commons. The only misfortune is, that, with all this exterior beauty, the life of political institutions is wanting-that spirit of regulated freedom-that happy balance of the different powers of the state-that independence and liberty of discussion that influence on public opinion, which render the British parliament the glory of the world. Catholics and Protestants sit indiscriminately in the chamber of deputies.

little congregation was seven as usual. At twelve,
I went to the Military Chapel, to hear the Ger-
man sermon, of which I found I could not under-
stand a word-I have lost my German. I con-
versed afterwards with the chaplain, who spoke
pretty good French; he was a sensible and pious
I said all I could to encourage him
young man.
in a bold and manly profession of the gospel. In
the afternoon, we went to the Cathedral-Popish
service-building fine-pulpit of beautiful, though
unadorned, marble. We are now about to have