will be eternally occult to you. All that surrounds us, all within us, is an enigma which it is not in the power of man to divine. The furred ignoramus ought to have been aware of this truth when he said, that beasts possess a vegetative and sensitive soul, and man a soul which is vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual. } ders; he pronounces the Ave Maria to a young girl, who replies 'fiat,' and the angel kisses her on the mouth; after which a child, shut up in a great cock of pasteboard, imitates the crowing of the cock. "Puer natus est nobis." A great ox bellows out 'ubi;' a sheep baas out Bethlehem;' an ass brays hihanus,' to signify 'eamus;' and a long procession, Poor man, kneaded up of pride, who preceded by four fools with bells and hast pronounced only words-hast thou baubles, brings up the rear. There still ever seen a soul? Knowest thou how it remain some traces of this popular deis made? We have spoken much of the votion, which among a civilised and edusoul in these inquiries, but have always { cated people would be taken for profaconfessed our ignorance. I now repeat nation. A Swiss out of patience, and this confession still more emphatically, possibly more intoxicated than the persince the more I read, the more I medi- formers of the ox and the ass, took the tate, and the more I acquire, the more liberty of remonstrating with them at am I enabled to affirm, that I know no- Louvain, and was rewarded with no small thing. number of blows; they would indeed have hanged him, and he escaped with great difficulty. OFFENCES (LOCAL). IF. we travel throughout the whole earth, we still find that theft, murder, { adultery, calumny, &c. are regarded as offences which society condemns and represses; but that which is approved in England and condemned in Italy, ought it to be punished in Italy, as if it were one of the crimes against general human-{ ity? That which is a crime only in the precincts of some mountains, or between two rivers, demands it not from judges more indulgence than those outrages which are regarded with horror in all countries? Ought not the judge to say to himself, I should not dare to punish in Ragusa what I punish at Loretto? Should not this reflection soften his heart, and moderate the hardness which it is too apt to contract in the long exercise of his employment? The same man had a dangerous quarrel at the Hague, for violently taking the part of Barnevelt against an outrageous Gomarist. He was imprisoned at Amsterdam for saying that priests were the scourge of humanity, and the source of all our misfortunes. "How!" said he, "if we maintain that good works are necessary to salvation, we are sent to a dungeon; and if we laugh at a cock and an ass, we risk hanging!" Ridiculous as this adventure was, it is sufficient to convince us, that we may be criminal in one or two points in our hemisphere, and innocent in all the rest of the world. ONAN. THE race of Onan exhibits great singularities. The patriarch Judah, his father, lay with his daughter-in-law Tamar The Kermesses' of Flanders are well the Phenician, in the high road; Jacob, known: they were carried in the last the father of Judah, was at the same century to a degree of indecency, revolt-time married to two sisters, the daughters ing to the eyes of all persons, who were not accustomed to such spectacles. The following is the manner in which Christmas is celebrated in some countries. In the first place appears a young man half-naked, with wings on his shoul-} of an idolater; and deluded both his father and father-in-law. Lot, the grand uncle of Jacob, lay with his two daughters, Saleum, one of the descendants of Jacob and of Judah, espoused Rahab the Canaanite, a prostitute. Boaz, son of Saleum and Rahab, received into his bed Ruth the Midianite; and was great grand-father of David. David took away Bathsheba from the warrior Uriah, her husband, and caused him to be slain, that he might be unrestrained in his amour. Lastly, in the two genealogies of Christ, which differ in so many points, but agree in this; we discover that he descended from this tissue of fornication,{child to bear the name of Er; and to adultery, and incest. {ness, and the patriarch wished his second son to espouse the widow, according to an ancient law of the Egyptians and Phenicians, their neighbours, which was called raising up seed for his brother. The first child of this second marriage bore the name of the deceased, and this Onan objected to. He hated the memory of his brother, or to produce a avoid it took the means which are detailed in the chapter of Genesis already mentioned, and which are practised by no species of animals but apes and human beings. Nothing is more proper to confound human prudence; to humble our limited minds; and to convince us that the ways of providence are not like our ways. The reverend father Dom Calmet An English physician wrote a small makes this reflection, in alluding to the volume upon this vice, which he called incest of Judah with Tamar, and to the after the name of the patriarch who was sin of Onan, spoken of in the 38th chapter guilty of it. M. Tissot, the celebrated of Genesis: "Scripture," he observes, physician of Lausanne, also wrote on "gives us the details of a history, which this subject, in a work much more proon the first perusal strikes our minds as found and methodical than the English not of a nature for edification; but the one. These two works detail the consehidden sense which is shut up in it is as quences of this unhappy habit-loss of elevated, as that of the mere letter ap- strength, impotence, weakness of the pears low to carnal eyes. It is not with-stomach and intestines, tremblings, verout good reasons that the Holy Spirit hastigo, lethargy, and often premature death. allowed the histories of Tamar, of Rahab, of Ruth, and of Bathsheba, to form a part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ." M. Tissot, however, to console us for this evil, relates as many examples of the mischiefs of repletion in both sexes. There cannot be a stronger argument against rash vows of chastity. From the examples afforded, it is impossible to avoid being convinced of the enormous folly of condemning ourselves to these turpitudes in order to renounce a connexion which has been expressly commanded by God himself. In this manner think the Protestants, the Jews, the Ma It might have been well if Dom Calmet had explained these sound reasons, by which we might have cleared up the doubts and appeased the scruples of all the honest and timorous souls who are anxious to comprehend how this Supreme Being, the Creator of worlds, could be born in a Jewish village, of a race of plunderers and of prostitutes. This mystery, which is not less incon-hometans, and many other nations; the ceivable than other mysteries, was assuredly worthy the explanation of so able a commentator:-but to return to our subject. Catholics offer other reasons in favour of converts. I shall merely say of the Catholics what Dom Calmet says of the Holy Ghost,-That their reasons are doubtless good, could we understand them. OPINION. We perfectly understand the crime of the patriarch Judah, and of the patriarchs Simeon and Levi, his brothers, at Sichem ; but it is more difficult to understand the sin of Onan. Judah had married his WHAT is the opinion of all the nations eldest son Er to the Phenician Tamar. of the north of America, and those which Er died in consequence of his wicked-border the Straits of Sunda, on the best Does it signify, that everything is arranged and ordered according to the laws of the impelling power? That I comprehend and acknowledge. of governments, and best of religions; { to me how everything is for the best; for on public ecclesiastical rights: on the I do not understand it. manner of writing history; on the nature of tragedy, comedy, opera, eclogue, epic poetry; on innate ideas, concomitant grace, and the miracles of deacon Paris? It is clear, that all these people have no opinions on things of which they have no ideas. Do you mean, that every one is well and possesses the means of living-that nobody suffers? You know that such is not the case. Are you of opinion, that the lamentable calamities which afflict the earth are good in reference to God; and that he takes pleasure in them? I credit not this horrible doctrine, nor you either. They have a confused feeling of their customs, and go not beyond this instinct. Such are the people who inhabit the shores of the Frozen Sea for the space of fifteen hundred leagues. Such are the inhabitants of three parts of Africa, and those of nearly all the isles of Asia; of} twenty hordes of Tartars, and almost all men solely occupied with the painful and continual care of providing their subsist-of making five worlds; because, said he, ence. Such are, at two steps from us, most of the Morlachians, many of the Savoyards, and some citizens of Paris. When a nation begins to be civilised, it has some opinions which are quite false. It believes in spirits, sorcerers, the enchantment of serpents and their immortality; in possessions of the devil, exorcisms, and soothsayers. It is persuaded, that seeds must grow rotten in the earth to spring up again, and that the quarters of the moon are the causes of accesses of fever. Have the goodness to explain how all is for the best. Plato the dialectician condescended to allow to God the liberty there are five regular solids in geometry, the tetrahedron, the cube, the hexahedron, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron. But why thus restrict divine power? Why not permit the sphere which is still more regular, and even the cone, the pyramid of many sides, the cylinder, &c.? God, according to Plato, necessarily chose the best of all possible worlds; and this system has been embraced by many Christian philosophers, although it appears repugnant to the doctrine of original sin. After this transgression, our globe was no more the best of all possible worlds. If it was ever so, it might be so still; but many people believe it to be the worst of worlds instead of the best. A Talapoin persuades his followers, that the god Samonocodom sojourned some time at Siam, and that he cut down all the trees in a forest which prevented him from flying his kite at his ease, which Leibnitz takes the part of Plato: more was his favourite amusement. This idea readers than one complain of their inatakes root in their heads; and finally, anbility to understand either the one or the honest man who might doubt this adventure of Samonocodom, would run the risk of being stoned. It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion. Opinion is called the queen of the world; it is so: for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes, to gradually drive away the usurper. other; and for ourselves, having read both of them more than once, we avow our ignorance according to custom; and since the gospel has revealed nothing on the subject, we remain in darkness with out remorse. Leibnitz, who speaks of everything, has treated of original sin; and as every man of systems introduces into his plan something contradictory, he imagined that the disobedience towards God, with I BEG of you, gentlemen, to explain the frightful misfortunes which followed OPTIMISM. it, were integral parts of the best of worlds, and necessary ingredients of all possible felicity:-"Calla, calla, senor don Carlos: todo che se haze es por su ben." What! to be chased from a delicious place, where we might have lived for ever only for the eating of an apple? What! to produce in misery wretched children, who will suffer everything, and in return produce others to suffer after them? What to experience all maladies, feel all vexations, die in the midst of grief, and by way of recompense be burned to all eternity-is this lot the best possible? It certainly is not good for us, and in what manner can it be so for God? Leibnitz felt that nothing could be said to these objections, but nevertheless made great books, in which he did not even understand himself. tius replies to it very poorly, by saying that God wills evil, but has given us wisdom to secure the good. It must be confessed, that this answer is very weak in comparison with the objection; for it implies that God could bestow wisdom only by allowing evil-a pleasant wisdom truly! The origin of evil has always been an abyss, the depth of which no one has been able to sound. It was this difficulty which reduced so many ancient philosophers and legislators to have recourse to two principles-the one good, the other wicked. Typhon was the evil principle among the Egyptians; Arimanes, among the Persians. The Manicheans, it is said, adopted this theory; but as these people have never spoken either of a good or of a bad principle, we have nothing to prove it but the assertion. Among the absurdities abounding in this world, and which may be placed Lucullus, in good health, partaking of among the number of our evils, that is a good dinner with his friends and his not the least which presumes the existmistress in the hall of Apollo, may jo-ence of two all-powerful beings, combatcosely deny the existence of evil; but letting which shall prevail most in this him put his head out of the window and world, and making a treaty like the two he will behold wretches in abundance; physicians in Molière :-"Allow me the let him be seized with a fever, and he emetic, and I resign to you the lancet. will be one himself. Basilides pretended, with the platoI do not like to quote ; it is ordinarily {nists of the first century of the church, a thorny proceeding. What precedes that God gave the making of our world and what follows the passage quoted is to his inferior angels and these, being too frequently neglected; and thus a inexpert, have constructed it as we perthousand objections may rise. I must ceive. This theological fable is laid notwithstanding quote Lactantius, one prostrate by the overwhelming objection, of the fathers, who, in the thirteenth that it is not in the nature of a deity chapter on the anger of God, makes Epi-all-powerful and all-wise to entrust the curus speak as follows:-"God can construction of a world to incompetent either take away evil from the world and architects. will not; or being willing to do so, cannot; or he neither can or will; or lastly, he is both able and willing. If he is willing to remove evil and cannot, then is he not omnipotent. If he can, but will not remove it, then is he not benevolent; if he is neither able nor willing, then is he neither powerful nor benevolent: lastly, if both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?" The argument is weighty, and Lactan Simon, who felt the force of this objection, obviates it by saying, that the angel who presided over the workmen is damned for having done his business so slovenly; but the roasting of this angel amends nothing. The adventure of Pandora among the Greeks scarcely meets the objection bet ter. The box in which every evil is inclosed, and at the bottom of which remains hope, is indeed a charming al legory; but this Pandora was made by It is necessary that everything be sacriVulcan, only to avenge himself of Pro-ficed to other things-vegetables to animetheus, who had stolen fire to inform a man of clay. The Indians have succeeded no better. God having created man, gave him a drug which would ensure him permanent health of body. The man loaded his ass with the drug, and the ass being thirsty, the serpent directed him to a fountain, and while the ass was drinking, purloined the drug. mals, and animals to the earth..... The laws of the central power of gravitation, which give to the celestial bodies their weight and motion, are not to be deranged in consideration of a pitiful animal, who, protected as he is by the same laws, will soon be reduced to dust." Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury, and Pope their working artisan, resolve their general question no better than the rest. Their The Syrians pretended, that man and all for the best' says no more than that woman having been created in the fourth all is governed by immutable laws; and heaven, they resolved to eat a cake in who did not know that? We learn nolieu of ambrosia, their natural food. { thing when we remark, after the manner Ambrosia exhaled by the pores; but of little children, that flies are created to after eating cake, they were obliged to be eaten by spiders, spiders by swallows, relieve themselves in the usual manner. { swallows by hawks, hawks by eagles, The man and the woman requested an eagles by men, men by one another to angel to direct them to a water-closet. afford food for worms; and at last, at the Behold, said the angel, that petty globe rate of about a thousand to one, to be which is almost of no size at all; it is the prey of devils everlastingly. situated about sixty millions of leagues from this place, and is the privy of the universe go there as quickly as you can. The man and woman obeyed the angel and came here, where they have ever since remained since which time the world has been what we now find it. The Syrians will eternally be asked, why God allowed man to eat the cake, and experience such a crowd of formidable ills?" There is a constant and regular order established among animals of all kindsan universal order. When a stone is formed in my bladder, the mechanical process is admirable: sandy particles pass by small degrees into my blood; they are filtered by the reins; and passing the urethra, deposit themselves in my bladder; where, uniting agreeably to the Newtonian attraction, a stone is formed which gradually increases, and I suffer I pass with speed from the fourth hea-pains a thousand times worse than death ven to Lord Bolingbroke. This writer, by the finest arrangement in the world. who doubtless was a great genius, gave A surgeon, perfect in the art of Tubalto the celebrated Pope his plan of all cain, thrusts into me a sharp instrument ; for the best,' as it is found word for word and cutting into the perineum, seizes the in the posthumous works of Lord Boling-stone with his pincers, which breaks dubroke, and recorded by Lord Shaftesbury ring the endeavours, by the necessary in his Characteristics. Read in Shaftes- laws of mechanism; and owing to the bury's chapter of the Moralists, the fol- same mechanism, I die in frightful torlowing passage :ments. All this is for the best,' being the evident result of unalterable physical principles, agreeably to which I know as well as you that I perish. "Much may be replied to these complaints of the defects of nature-How came it so powerless and defective from the hands of a perfect Being?-But I deny that it is defective. Beauty is the result of contrast, and universal concord springs out of a perpetual conflict. ... If we were insensitive, there would be nothing to say against this system of physics; but this is not the point on which we treat. We ask, if there are not phy |