for souls in purgatory (I give it word for word;) the second for repairing the church: the third for offerings, without specifying the object-no box for the poor. I asked a person who called himself a bookseller (who, by the bye, was the only one in the town, and actually had only one book to sell, a Code of French laws) about the different institutions for religion. The man's wife, who was standing by, replied, they had an archbishop, who had been simply bishop in Bonaparte's time, but who was now archbishop of Chamberry, and prince bishop of Geneva! I stared. She said he was bishop of the Christians at Geneva. I asked her what she called the twenty-five thousand Protestants who inhabited that town? She answered, they were not Christians. I told her, then I was not one myself; she begged pardon, and said she meant apostolical Roman Christians. I told her I believed in the Holy Scriptures, and in Jesus Christ our Lord, and in the doctrine of the apostles, and therefore I was a good apostolical Christian, though not a Papist. I give this as a trait of character in a bettermost sort of person. It is the natural effect of the doctrine which excludes from everlasting salvation all who belong not to the church of Rome. Bigotry and persecution follow as matters of course. I must say, however, that I have met with many Roman Catholics during my tour, who expressly assured me that they disbelieved this uncharitable tenet. One lady told me she had informed her priest in confession, that she never could receive it. Let only the holy doctrines and holy lives of Protestants be more and more known by the Catholics, and charity must and will overthrow so fatal a dogma. Indeed, if the Holy Scriptures are once generally read, this and other doctrines of Popery must by degrees fall, in spite of Popes and eouncils. We left Chamberry a quarter before eight. We have now come seventy-two miles, to this ancient and noble city of Lyon.* We entered France at twelve, at Pont-beau-voisin. We had amazing difficulty in getting through the customhouse. I had left some necessary papers at Lausanne. The officers were however civil, and after hearing my story, at length allowed us to proceed. I believe we were detained four hours. Travellers cannot be too particular in carrying their papers with them wherever they go. The road was, in two parts of it, perhaps as fine as any thing we have seen. The passages of les Echelles and of la Chaille are most terrific, from the immense rocks through which they have been made, and the fine scenery which surrounds them. These roads were begun by a former duke of Savoy in 1670, and at three different times resumed by Bonaparte without being completed. The present king of Sardinia has this last year or two just accomplished the whole; in fact, this Mount Cenis road, in general, seems to have been a work gradually carried on from the days of Augustus, that is, during eighteen centuries-a space of time sufficiently long. It is but a few years ago, that three or four oxen were regularly yoked to every carriage to aid the horses in the ascent of les Echelles. I remember bishop Berkeley gives a frightful account of his passage on new-year's day, 1714. He says he was carried in an open chair by men used to scale these craggy and dangerous rocks, and that his life often depended on a single step. Bonaparte put an end to this by making a tunnel, nine hundred and fifty feet, directly through the opposing rock. At another part of the route, the travellers were let down in a kind of sledge, at a most fearful rate. Much even now remains to be done between Lyon and Turin; as the road for many stages is exceedingly bad. The towns and villages in Dauphiny are very miserable. The priests have mocked, as it were, this misery, by building, in one or two of the market-places, splendid gilt crucifixes, which are in deep contrast with the poverty and wretchedness of every house within view. Sunday, one o'clock at noon.-I have had to-day the singular pleasure of attending a Protestant French church. It was really quite delightful to hear the reader begin the worship of God by reading distinctly two chapters of the New Testament in French, so as to be understood by all the people. The singing; the Ten Commandments, word for word as they are in the Bible; the summary of the Law, exactly as it is in Matt. xxii. 37-39; a public Baptism; the confession of sins; the prayer; the sermon, all charmed me as the spi ritual, reasonable, and instructive worship of God. Especially the reading of the Scriptures was so simple, so authoritative, so majestic, so edifying; I do not wonder the Reformers laid so much stress on it. Indeed, I cannot express the striking difference between this simple Protestant worship and the farce, show, and mummery of Popery at Martigny and Milan. All minor differences between Protestant churches, agreeing in the faith and love our Lord Jesus Christ, sink into nothing before the frightful idolatry and superstition of Popery. Disputes about circumstantials are impertinent-divisions odious-love should unite every heart, where main and necessary Scripture truth is felt and acknowledged. Indeed, one great reason of my hurrying on to Lyon against to-day, was to enjoy once more the unspeakable blessing of the pure public worship of Almighty God. The sermon was, so far as I could hear (for I sat at a distance, and the church was crowded,) pretty good, on an important topic, death; with many striking parts. I regret extremely to add, that there is but one service here on the Sunday, instead of three, or at the least, two, which there surely ought to be, in an immense city like this. In walking to church also, we were distressed to see the shops all half or a third part open, and customers going in and out, with crowds of persons at the coffee-houses. At Milan, the shops were universally shut. But allow me, my dear sister, to turn to another, and, to me, more solemn topic; this day twentytwo years, I was admitted into the sacred ministry of Christ's church. What reflections crowd upon my mind! May I have grace to remember more and more the vows I then made; the duties to my Saviour and to his flock, which I then undertook; ⚫ I observe it is generally spelt Lyons: but in the the unnumbered errors and defects of which, alas! town itself they carefully omit the final s. I am too conscious, (especially, as archbishop Usher said on his dying bed, my sins of omission;) the ceaseless mercies which I have received, and the short time which remains for me to labor for my own salvation, and the salvation of others! Here I am, travelling for my health, in a foreign land; thanks be to God, that health is wonderfully restored; so wonderfully, that I am not like the same person. But then I have been silent now fourteen Sundays, and the future is all uncertain. May God enable me, if I am permitted to return home, to feel more lively compassion for my fellow-creatures, to be more dead to worldly things, and to labor more abundantly in the sacred vineyard; and may he pour out his Holy Spirit upon my kind friends who are supplying my lack of service; yea, upon the universal church! Time carries us away as a flood. Souls are passing into eternity. Judgment is near. All is mere trifling compared with eternal salvation. Ten o'clock, Sunday night.-My younger son has been suffering all day with cold in his teeth. There is no fever, no head-ache, nothing but a rheumatic affection of the front teeth; still this is very painful to him, and very embarrassing to me, being without my dearest wife; and thus, it comes to me as a chastisement and admonition from my Heavenly Father. How many, many mercies have we received during our long journey, and how little grateful have we been for them! May this indisposition work in him and in me the "peaceable fruits of righteousness." And on every occasion of suffering, slight, as well as severe, may I ever be disposed to say, "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.' At four this afternoon, I left my elder son to nurse his brother; and went to a Catholic church to hear a celebrated preacher of this town. I placed myself close under the pulpit, so that I understood almost the whole of the sermon; it was an able, energetic, striking discourse; not one word of Popery, properly speaking, (which was the case also, as I have said, at Martigny,) but defective, general, unevangelical, and therefore unscriptural and dangerous. His subject was the happiness of heaven; he drew a striking picture of the glory, power, happiness, honor, &c., of the heavenly state. His immediate point was to prove, from Scripture and experience, how much glory, power, happiness, &c., God bestows on his servants, and even enemies, here on earth; and then to infer the infinitely superior glory of heaven. He cited admirably the cases of Moses, Abraham, Joshua, David, Peter, &c. What then, you say, were the defects? The heaven he described was with the Saviour, without pardon, without holiness; his heaven was an intellectual, poetical, sublime sort of paradise; he took for granted, too, that all were in the right way to it. Thus, almost all the great ends of preaching were lost, and worse than lost. four months has scarcely met with a single edifying, solid, scriptural sermon. England, alas! too often undervalues and abuses her abundant privileges. The immense church was crowded to excess, and hung on the lips of the preacher. He preached from memory. His manner was serious, vehement, impassioned. He so affected the people that, at the pauses, positively nearly the whole congregation were in tears. I really think we have much to learn at home as to our manner of preaching; the two Catholic sermons I have heard, were incomparably superior to most of our English ones, in careful preparation, intelligible arrangement, forcible application to the conscience, fervent and earnest delivery; in short, in the whole MANNER of the address. Lyon, Tuesday, September 23.-We are still here; my dear son, though much better, cannot travel. I have called in the first physician in the town; for there are no apothecaries here as in England. The ordinary fee is three francs a visit ; but five or six are expected, my banker tells me, of an Englishman. The physician writes prescriptions, which are made up at the druggist's or pastry-cook's-for half his medicines are syrups and sweetmeats. I have sent his brother by the Diligence to Geneva, that he may go on to Lausanne and fetch the rest of the family to me. By returning this way home, they will go very little out of their route, and they will also see Lyon, the second city of France. I am obliged, however, by this plan, to break my engagements with my kind friends at Geneva, which I had fixed for Thursday, the 25th; and I much regret that I shall not revisit Lausanne. I omitted to see several things there; especially the house and library of Gibbon. My friends told me that the library was locked up-no bad thing for the world; and that the terrace and summerhouse, where he completed his history in 1787, were falling into decay.* He left, like all other The manner in which he records the termination of his work would be more interesting, if the associations raised in the Christian's mind could be separated from the recollection of it. June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, "It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of that I wrote the last line of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame." "The This last point was, in his view, the great object of life. Hope, beyond death, he had none. He reluctantly confesses in another place, that "the abbreviation of time and the failure of hope, tinged Still the sermon did me good, because much of with a browner shade the evening of life.' it was true, as far as it went; and I was glad to present," he elsewhere acknowledges, "is a fleeting hear a priest stand on Protestant ground, and ap-moment, the past is no more; and our prospect of peal to the Bible, and the Bible only. Besides, my long absence from home has disposed me to receive with candor and delight any thing that approaches the truth of the Gospel in any part of a discourse. What the apostle calls "itching ears," are soon cured, when a man for three or futurity is dark and doubtful." His attempts to perfrom the following passage:-"This day may possuade himself that death was distant, are apparent sibly be my last; but the laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular, still allow about fifteen years." He wrote this sentence some time in the year 1788 daring infidels, a refutation of his principles behind him in the pride, impurity, vanity, and extreme selfishness of his moral character. As to fidelity and trust-worthiness in his history, it has been demonstrated that his stateinents of facts cannot at all be relied on, where Christianity is concerned. After these fatal deductions, to admit that he had great talents and powers, is only to augment the melancholy impression with which a Christian adverts to the name of a man who has contributed so largely to corrupt the first sources of historical truth. Wednesday.-My eldest son set off in the mail yesterday, at a quarter before three, for Geneva and Lausanne. I sit with my remaining sick boy, read to him, talk with him, amuse him, give him his medicines, and yet contrive to take one or two walks about the town and neighborhood in the course of the day. I can, however, at present give you only a very inadequate account of Lyon. It contains one hundred and seventy-five thousand souls. This is immense for a city not the capital of the country. It was founded by the Romans about forty-two years before the Christian æra, and was called Lugdunum. It is finely situated at the confluence of the Saone and the Rhone, which flow nearly parallel for some time before their junction, and afford room for this noble city to rise on the tongue of land enclosed between the two rivers as they approach. Their channels are nearly equal in breadth, but the Rhone contains the greater volume of water, and rolls on to the Mediterranean. It is just as if London had two rivers like the Thames, between which its chief buildings and streets were raised. Over these rivers the Lyonese have erected nine bridges, from which there are fine views of the interior of the town. On the banks they have formed delightful quays and walks. This is an advantage peculiar to Lyon. You never saw such beautiful promenades for a-mile or two together, on the sides both of the Saone and the Rhone, as there are here. Some of them are bordered with rows of trees, and are little inferior to those of Paris. The spot is pointed out by the guides where Hannibal is supposed to have crossed the Rhone in his celebrated invasion of Italy. The body of the old town is dirty, narrow, dark, miserable; but the new parts are open, spacious, elegant. We are at the Hotel du Providence in the Rue de la Charité. On our right hand, we can see the Rhone; on our left, there is the noble square, or place of Belle Cour, which is amongst the finest in Europe; it has walks of Linden trees on one but instead of fifteen years of life, he expired almost suddenly on the 16th of January, 1791, after scarcely a third part of the expected time had elapsed-and this of a disease which he had studiously concealed from others, and, as far as he could, from himself, for thirty-three years. So little was he aware of his danger, that he jested with Lord Sheffield on the subject almost to the last; and even when life was expiring, he told a friend that he considered himself to be a good life for ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years-this was said just twenty hours before his death. Such is infidelity-so cold, so dark, so hopeless, so vain, so self-deceiving-I was going to say, so childish and absurd. side, and the range of hills called La Fourvière, rising beyond. This all of Fourvière was the object of my walk yesterday. Its proper name is Fort Viel, Forum Vetus, on which the ancient city of Lyon, or Lugdunum, in the time of the Romans, was founded about the time of the death of Cæsar. The view which I there obtained of the whole neighborhood was superb; absolutely it was enchanting. The vast expanse of unimpeded prospect, the noble rivers, the bridges, the buildings, the quays, the churches, the hills surrounding the town on one side, and clothed with country-houses and vineyards, were all sketched in the magnificent landscape; whilst the distant Alps, including, when the weather is clear, the vast Alp of Mont Blanc, (which may at times be discerned from Dijon, and even Langres, above one hundred and eighty miles distant from it in a direct line,) in the farther ground, formed, as it were, the frame of the picture. Indeed the neighborhood of Lyon is considered as more beautiful, as well as more rich and populous, than the vicinity of Paris. How painful to turn from all these beauties to the chapel of Notre Dame, on this eminence, which was re-opened by Pope Pius VII., at his last journey through Lyon. The Virgin here has wrought wonderful miracles, and people come on pilgrimage to it! Half the chapel was covered with votive tablets. I think I speak within compass, when I say there were thousands of them. Is this the way to cure the infidelity of the French? When will a little common sense enter the heads of the priests? But I check myself I must remember that Popery is "a strong delusion;" or, as the Apostle's expression may perhaps be more literally rendered, "the energy of error! I was much pleased with three soldiers whom I met at Fourvière, and who, seeing I was a stranger, really loaded me with civilities, with a gaiety of manner quite surprising-and then positively refused to take any recompense. The revolutionists in 1793 did infinite mischief at Lyon. The Jacobins hated it for its loyalty, its virtues, its commerce; but the Royalists had the ascendancy in the town, till the convention at Paris ordered it to be besieged. The place was taken by storm, and unknown murders were committed. The statues of Louis the XIV., two fountains, and all the public buildings in Belle Cour, were levelled to the earth. The machinery of the chief manufacturers was broken to pieces, their houses razed to the ground, and themselves led to execution. The guillotine being too tardy an instrument of death, whole parties were crowded into boats and sunk. The convention even decreed the demolition of the entire city, and the extinction of its name. A monument is raised to two hundred and ten Lyonese who were coolly shot after the siege. Such is liberty pushed to licentiousness and outrage, and casting off the government of law. charms me. It is increasing daily. Buildings are Thursday morning, September 25 -Lyon quite rising on every side. Commerce has been regu larly improving since the peace of 1815. During the revolution all was decaying. The looms for velvet, silk, and gauze, were diminished from 10,000 to 1,600; and the hands employed in the hat manufactories from 8,000 to about the same number. The sill manufacture, which came originally from Italy, is now transferred to England. Still trade here generally is reviving. The printing and bookselling of this place are next to Paris in importance. There is a large military, as well as civil power, in the town. The streets are always crowded with people. visited St. Irenée, the site of the ancient city, though now only a suburb. I here visited the Roman baths at the Ursuline Monastery (formerly so, for all the monasteries and convents were abolished at the Revolution.) These baths consist of a series of numerous dark vaults, communicating with each other, about twenty feet under ground; but no longer interesting, except from their antiquity. I then went to what was the garden of the Minimes, and saw the remains of Friday morning, September 26th, nine o'clock.- the Roman Amphitheatre, where the early ChrisMy dear son, thank God, is amending. Yesterday tians were exposed to the wild beasts. This scene I went to see the Hotel de Ville, and the Palais affected me extremely. The form of the Amphides Arts. The Hotel de Ville is one of the finest theatre remains, after a lapse of sixteen or sevenin Europe. It is an immense pile in the form of teen centuries. Some traces may be discovered a quadrangle, with a noble court in the midst. of the rising seats of turf, and several dilapidated The mayor resides there, and has state apart- brick vaults seem to indicate the places where the ments, as in our Mansion House. The great stair-wild beasts, and perhaps the holy martyrs, were case is adorned with a painting of the burning of guarded. It is capable of holding an immense the city, in the first century, as described by Se- assemblage-perhaps 30 or 40,000 persons. A neca. The large hall was occupied with a balloon and parachute, in which Mselle. Garnerin is about to ascend next Sunday, and which is now exhibiting gratis. The Palais des Arts was, before the revolution, an abbey of Benedictine nuns, (the Garde des Corps and Gens-d'armes have here occupied another convent.) It contains a curious collection of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities. A model of a temple found at Pompeii pleased me extremely. still more elevated range of seats, to which you ascend by decayed stone steps, seem to have been the place allotted for the magistrates and regula tors of the barbarous shows. A peaceful vineyard now flourishes where these scenes of horror once reigned. The tender garden shrub springs in the seats and vaults. The undisturbed wild flowers perfume the air. A stranger now and then visits the spot, and calmly inquires if that was the Amphitheatre which once filled all Christendom with lamentation. What a monster is persecution, whether Pagan, Popish, or Protestant! And yet, till the beginning of the last century, it was hardly banished from the general habits of Europe.Would to God that even now it could be said to be utterly rooted out! But the most interesting thing is part of the speech of the emperor Claudius, when censor of Rome, on the question of first admitting into the Roman senate the great personages of the neighborhood of Lyon. It is engraven on bronze, and is now fixed in the wall of the museum, so as to be easily legible. It was found in 1528, in digging a canal through a hill near Lyon. It consists of two columns, and every word is perfectly legible. It is the more valuable because Tacitus, in the eleventh book of his annals, gives this self-many thousand Christians who were martyred in same speech, but so altered and embellished as scarcely to retain a trace of the original-the line of argument is quite different. It thus may serve, perhaps, as some test of the fidelity of the other speeches of Tacitus and Livy. It is a triumphant reflection, that the evidences of the truth of Christianity have been uniformly, and without a single exception, confirmed by all the discoveries of historical monuments during eighteen centuries. I alluded to this source of proof when I was giving you an account of Avenches in Switzerland. Medals, speeches, altars, pillars, chronicles, arches, found in all countries, and of all ages, have united to confirm the facts on which Christianity rests. May this Christianity be purified from superstition and idolatry, and be displayed more and more in its native efficacy on the hearts and lives of mankind! It is not so much evidence that we want, as grace, repentance, faith, charity, holiness, the influences of the blessed Spirit, primitive Christianity embodied in the lives and tempers of Christians. Saturday, Sept. 27.-My dearest John is now nearly well. I expect my dear family from Lausanne to-night, and then our domestic circle will again be complete. I had no spirits yesterday, to go and see any thing; but this morning I have I visited, after this, the church of St. Irenée, built in the time of the Romans, when the liberty of public worship was refused the Christians. It is subterraneous, and contains the bones of the the year 202, under the emperor Severus. It is of this noble army of martyrs that Milner gives such an effecting account. An inscription on the church states, that St. Pothinus was sent by Polycarp, and founded it; and was martyred under the emperor Antoninus; that St. Irenæus succeeded him, and converted an infinite multitude of Pagans, and suffered martyrdom, together with nineteen thousand Christians, besides women and children, in the year 202; and that in the year 470, the church was beautified. I have not an exact recollection of what Milner says, and therefore may be wrong in giving credit to some of these particulars; but I have a strong impression that the main facts agree with the tradition on the spot; and I confess, I beheld the scene with veneration. I could almost forgive the processions which are twice in the year made to this sacred place, if it were not for the excessive ignorance and superstition attending them. Near to this church are some fine remains of a Roman aqueduct, for conveying water to the city, built at the time of Julius Cæsar. A convent of three hundred nuns has arisen since the peace, in the same place, of the order of St. Michel, where many younger daughters are sent from the best families, to be got out of the way, just the same as under the ancient regime. In saying this, I do not forget that the education in many of the convents is, in some respects, excellent, and that the larger number of young persons are placed there merely for a few years for that purpose. Still the whole system is decidedly bad, and unfriendly to the highest purposes of a generous education. compassion to the poor, friendliness and devoted zeal, connected with the faithful preaching of the holy truths of the Gospel, gave him such an influence, that he was beloved and honored by all his parishioners. It had been his practice from his youth to read the entire Bible through every year-an admirable trait, and quite characteristic of the man. The clergyman who attended his dying bed, has sent me a most interesting account of the last scenes. Undisturbed, calm, resigned, with a meek reliance on the merits of his Saviour, and anticipating with sacred pleasure the joy and holiness of heaven, he fell asleep in Christ. The cimetière, or public burial ground, is a fine pacious plot of five hundred feet by eight hundred, planted with trees, and guarded from all outrage. It affords many an affecting, solemn, mstructive lesson. One walks amongst the monuments of those who were once gay, and learned, and skilful, and eager, and successful as ourselves; and who thought as little of death as most of those do who stop to number their graves. A brief have all had a peaceful night. This is my fifSunday morning, Sept. 28th.-Thank God, we space of thirty years sweeps off an entire genera- teenth Sunday of entire silence and rest from the tion, and levels all the momentary distinctions of composition and delivery of sermons. I attribute life. Happy they who so number their days, as to apply their hearts unto wisdom! As I return- cessation from labor. But it is painful to me. my present change of health, under God, to this ed to our hotel, I visited the remains of the ar- My Sundays are my grief and burden. The sudsenal, which was burnt down in the siege of 1793. den call of my dear Arnott fills me with solemn Our physician tells me, the scenes of that period anticipations of my own account, so soon to be were terrific; he really trembled when he began rendered at the bar of Christ my Saviour. I beg to talk of it. No wonder Bonaparte was hailed the earnest prayers of all my friends, that I may as the deliverer from its horrors. I am struck in be enabled to "walk humbly with my God;" and passing through the streets near the churches, to at length "finish my course with joy, and the misee women with stalls selling pictures as offerings nistry which I have received of the Lord Jesus." to the Virgin; this marks the popular taste for My gratitude in having all my dear family well superstition, which is reviving; and is a most un-and comfortable around me, is great. favorable symptom. Yours, D. W. NOTICE OF A CHAMBERRY PEASANT. Saturday evening, 10 o'clock.-My dearest wife, with my son and daughter, arrived at eight o'clock this evening; all in perfect health, through God's great goodness: I never saw them look so well. Daniel reached Geneva at three o'clock on WedAs the impression I received of the religious nesday; went the next day to Lausanne, settled state of Chamberry was unfavorable, I feel a peevery thing there, set off in our other voiture with culiar pleasure in relating the following anecdote. post-horses on Friday (yesterday) morning, and Two English ladies were passing through a valarrived here safely this evening, after a journey ley in the neighborhood of Chamberry a year or of one hundred and thirty miles. It is quite de- two back. They met a female peasant of an inlightful to me to see them all again in such health teresting appearance, apparently between twenty and comfort. Ann has brought me three letters and thirty years of age. They engaged in confrom you; one dated July 9th, from Cologne; the versation with her, and found she was in service, second, August 21st; and the third, Sept. 8th and had by her industry saved money enough to this makes the series complete. The varied buy a cow, which she had presented to her painformation they contain interests me beyond ex-rents. Upon turning the conversation towards pression. The death of my dearest brother and friend Arnott wounds me to the heart. What a loss to his family and his parishes! But what a happy Christian death! I am bereaved of a friend not to be replaced; a friend, whose advice, piety, and judgment, were only equalled by his sincerity and tenderness. His sudden departure overwhelms me. He was ten years younger than myself, and died, it seems, after an illness of only a few days. He had been, from his earliest childhood, remarkable for piety. His studies at the University were diligent and successful, and directed to the highest ends. During the time that he was curate at St. John's, his conscientious activity in every branch of his duties was most exemplary. He left me about ten years back, on obtaining a small living in Sussex. Here his wisdom, spirituality of mind, * The Rev. Samuel Arnott, perpetual curate of Eastbourne, near Midhurst. religion, she took out a book in which was the following paper sealed in it, which her priest had given her. I add, though it is scarcely worth while, a translation, as the lines happen to be short. |