Mass at St. Roch for Admiral de Rigny.--The Abbé Lacordaire at
Notre Dame.--State of the French Church.--St. Genevieve.--St.
Etienne du Mont.--The American child at Prayers.--St. Medard.--Its
Miracles.--Chapelle de St. Nicholas.--The Madelaine.--Notre
Dame.--St. Denis.--St. Sulpice.--The Church Service.--Celibacy of
the Clergy.--American Churches.--Manner of keeping Sunday.
Paris, November 14th, 1835.
I attended yesterday a mass said at St. Roch’s for the soul of the
Admiral de Rigny, who was famous, you know, for much fighting at sea and
land, especially at Navarino, and for much talking in the Chamber of
Peers about the American Indemnity. He was never chary about dying, he
said, but he thought it unlucky to be snatched away just when he was
wanted to chastise “Old Hickory” for his impudent Message. By-the-bye,
all the world is talking of war here by the hour, with great fluency and
ignorance. Newspapers and conversation are full of abuse. They send out
privateers by five hundreds, and take our ships as kites catch chickens.
Worst of all, they don’t leave an American alive, and they kill us all
off without losing a man.--The Admiral’s hearse was rich with the spoils
of vanquished enemies, and was escorted by ten thousand French heroes to
_Pére la Chaise_, with thrilling music from all the military bands, and
with a pomp and circumstance suitable to the dignity of so great a
personage.
I went this morning with every body to Notre Dame, to hear the
celebrated Abbé Lacordaire preach. He was too eloquent! Oratory in this
country, at least in the pulpit, has her trumpet always at full blast,
and announces the smallest little news with the emphasis of a miracle.
Her method is to run up to the top of the voice and then pour out her
whole spirit, as your Methodists on Guinea Hill, until human nature is
exhausted, and then to take a drink and begin again. I will set you a
French sermon, if you please, to the gamut, and you may play it on the
piano.
You must know, that the Parisian young men having gained great credit at
the last Revolution, (and they were not oppressed with modesty before
that event,) now give the tone to society. The device of the nation is
“Young France.” It is young France that measures merit and deals out
reputation; so it is not strange that they should set up this Abbé for a
Bossuet or a Bourdaloue; any more than that an eye unpractised in
painting should set up a tawdry piece of daubing above the chaste and
excellent compositions of genius. It is true, there is not a class of
young men in any country more earnest in the pursuit of letters, than
these French; but youth is not the age of good taste, and is not the age
that ought to govern public sentiment in any department of life.
In old France, the church being rich and honourable, was filled by
persons well educated and refined by good society. For a long time,
there has been no permanent public esteem to encourage talent among the
clergy, or restrain them from vices degrading to their order. Religion,
which had nearly perished in the Revolution, had but a feeble health
under the Empire; and Louis XVIII. and Charles so favoured the
priesthood, especially the Jesuits, and at the same time so
mis-governed the nation, that they had again brought it to its last gasp
at the accession of Louis Philippe. There was a time when even admission
to the Duchess de Berri’s balls required one to go to the communion and
take the sacrament. The present king has fallen in with the popular
sentiment, and is gradually changing this sentiment to the side of the
clergy, showing in this, as in most things else, the ability of a good
statesman. He sends his own family to church, and it begins to be
fashionable to be seen there. Not indeed from any reverence for
religion.
Things venerable in this country have had their day, and, as far as
religion is concerned, the bump of veneration is worn out of the human
skull. But the world rushes to Notre Dame in the morning, and to the
Opera in the evening, and to both, for the same purpose; for the crowd,
for the music and dramatic effect, for the emotion, for the fashion. I
had a student with me this morning; a young gentleman, who has just made
his debut in the world of beards, and judging from his conversation, it
would take a fifty-parson power at least to get him to heaven; but he
was enthusiastic in admiration of the sermon. Let the Abbé Lacordaire
preach when he will, Notre Dame is mobbed with worshippers.
I believe I shall take advantage of my unusual seriousness, as it is
Sunday, to tell you all I know about such divine things as French
churches. Almost every saint in the Almanack has acquired the honours of
at least one. There are forty-five of Roman, one of Greek, and two of
Independent French Catholics; and the churches for Protestant service,
are three French, and two English, besides a synagogue; and there are
several places of worship in private houses and palaces.
All the Catholic churches are decorated with the most costly furniture;
with saints, virgins, and angels in statuary and painting by the best
masters. Why, the gold and silver expended in this old church of Notre
Dame upon Virgin Marys alone, would make a railroad to the Havre.
One of the most beautiful of these churches and my next neighbour too,
is _St. Genevieve_, now called the _Pantheon_, once the “abode of Gods
whose shrines no longer burn.” It is now the national sepulchre for
great men. It is two hundred and fifty feet high, and overtops
majestically all Paris. It was designed to rival the Great St. Paul’s of
London.
On one of the cupolas of the dome, which is surrounded by a colonnade of
Corinthian pillars, is painted the apotheosis of St. Geneviéve. Her
saintship is in the costume of a shepherdess, breathing all peace, all
happiness, all immortality. Nothing of earth is in her composition.
Beside her, is Louis XVIII. and little winged angels. They are very
busy--the angels--in scattering flowers about the saint. Above her, is
Louis XVI. and his queen, as elegant as she was upon the threshold of
Versailles, and Louis XVII. all surrounded by celestial glory. Before
her, are the persons the most illustrious of each race; Clovis, who
looks very savage; St. Clotilde, very pretty; Charlemagne, very heroic;
and St. Louis and Queen Margarite who look very pious. They are now
effacing these figures for something more suitable to the occasion.
The floor of this temple, incrusted with various-coloured marble, is
very remarkable, and very beautiful. It is exclusively occupied by
Voltaire and Rousseau, at opposite extremities.[1] Why did they not lay
them at the side of each other, that we might all learn how vain are the
jealousies, the petty competitions and animosities of men so soon to
come to this appointed and unavoidable term of all human contentions.
These are the only two who are buried above ground.
It was once the custom of these old countries to multiply a man by
burying him piecemeal, his heart at Rouen and his legs in Kent, because
the world was then on short allowance of heroes; but modern times have
reversed this practice; and Bonaparte has laid up together a whole batch
of them in the basement of this church, for eternity, as you lay up
potatoes in your cellar for winter. Here are the names graven overhead
in a catalogue, on the marble, of men famous for giving counsel to the
Emperor (who never took any) in the senate, and of men who gained a
great deal of celebrity by having their brains knocked out on the fields
of Austerlitz and Marengo.
When Marat was deified by the Convention, he was interred here in 1793,
and in 1794 he was disinterred and undeified, and then thrown into his
native element, the common sewer, in the Rue Montmartre--to purify him.
I have often sat an hour in a beautiful little temple adjoining this,
called _St. Etienne du Mont_. Its architecture is original and pretty,
and it is rich in statuary and paintings. The pulpit is a splendid piece
of workmanship, supported by a figure of Samson kneeling upon a dead
lion; allegorical figures are hovering over, and an archangel, with two
trumpets, is assembling the faithful. The painted glass, too, is
brilliant with colours glowing as the rainbow. In a morning walk, I have
often found an excuse for returning this way. A few persons, mostly
women, are seen kneeling through the church, upon the marble, before the
altar, silently--you hear but the little whispering prayers fluttering
towards Heaven--the tranquillity of early morning is so favourable to
devotion. It feels like giving to Heaven the first offerings of one’s
heart. I have often sat here on the fine summer evenings, too, when the
twilight shed its gray and glimmering rays through the windows upon the
statues of the venerable saints and martyrs, and listened to the voices
as they swelled in the sacred anthem, and then fell, with the departing
day, into silence. It seemed to me the very romance of religion. One
feels more the influence of such feelings when wandering alone in a
foreign country.
In visiting a boarding-school of this quarter, a few days ago, I entered
a room where the children were praying before retiring to bed; I
observed one with his hands clasped, and pouring out his little soul
with the fervency of a saint--an American child, of eight years, from
New York--I took him in my arms at the end of his prayer, saying: “_Vous
aimez donc bien, le bon Dieu?_”--“_Ah! oui_,” he replied, with a most
eloquent expression, “_on aime bien le bon Dieu quand on est loin de ses
parens._”--It is so natural to lay hold of heaven, when cut off from
one’s home and earthly affections. If I had the amiable society of your
“Two Hills,” and the other comforts and consolations of the village, I
should not be hovering so piously about this little church of St.
Etienne du Mont.
The great Pascal, in spite of the Jesuits’ noses, is buried here; and an
old tower, in the neighbourhood, recals the memory of the renowned Abbey
of St. Genevieve. I have visited, several times, the library of this
institution, and paid my respects to its one hundred and fifty thousand
volumes, and thirty thousand manuscripts. This, like all the other
places of Paris, where they keep books, is filled constantly with
readers, and, like every other institution of the kind, is open
gratuitously to the public.
I spoke of _Val de Grace_ in my last letter. A little to the east of it,
and of not less historical importance, is the church of _St. Medard_; to
which I stretched, also, one of my solitary walks, and took a seat among
the worshippers. Faint hymns, chanted at a distance, as the still
evening comes on, have lured many a wandering sinner from the wickedness
of the world. This is the church so famous for its miracles, called the
“convulsions,” which once filled the whole city with alarm; and were not
discontinued, until the archbishop had placed a strong military guard
around the tomb of father Paris. You know the placard put up by some wag
on this occasion:
“De par le roi, defense à Dieu,
De faire miracle en ce lieu.”
The young girls used to have fits at this tomb, which gave them comical
twitchings of the nerves. Some would bark all night long at the door of
their chambers, and others leap about like frogs all day. Sister Rose
supped the air with a spoon, as your babies do pap, and lived on it
forty days; another swallowed a New Testament, bound in calf. Some had
themselves hung, others crucified, and one, called Sister Rachel, when
nailed to a cross, said she was quite happy--“_qu’elle faisait dodo_.”
In their holy meetings, they beat, trampled, punctured, crucified, and
burnt one another, without the least sentiment of pain. All this was
done at St. Medard, under Louis XV., and attested by ten thousand
witnesses.
Large packages of the earth were exported to work miracles, in the
provinces and foreign countries. One of these miracles is told in a song
of the Duchesse de Maine.
“Un decrotteur à la royale,
Du talon gauche estropié,
Obtint par grace speciale,
D’etre boiteux de l’autre pied.”
Some of these fanatics were found, forty years afterwards, in the
dungeons of the Bastile, at its destruction in 1789.
There is one point in religion, in which there are no heretics out of
Scotland--the music. The choir of voices, which assisted the organs in
this church, seemed to be almost divine. One feminine voice, singing
occasionally alone, had all the powers of enchantment; swelling
sometimes into a strain of almost religious frenzy, and then melting
softly away till there was nothing between it and silence; and just in
front of me, and in full view, sat a handsome woman, wrapped entirely in
her devotional enjoyments, who seemed placed there expressly to give
effect to the music; her shoulders, arms, and features, all moved in
exact unison with its harmony. I wish you could have seen her beautiful
countenance as she presented it to the firmament; her sainted smile
which beamed out and waned away upon her lips; the devout expression of
her eyes, how illuminated as the music rose, how languishing in its
dying notes; how she expired, and then came to life again! I do not hope
to see again on the earth a more vivid picture of religious rapture.
Devotion, I believe, exalts a woman’s beauty to its highest perfection;
there is no picture so beautiful as the Madonna, and, if I were a woman,
I would be religious, if for no other motive, just from vanity. No one
doubts that the human countenance is modified by the feelings cherished
in the heart, and she who cherishes the mild and benevolent Christian
affections, cannot be otherwise than very pretty. If there are any ugly
women in the world, it is because they have not been brought up
religiously. I sat thinking all this over, till night came on, and I
felt one or two of sister Rose’s twitchings.
I am going to tell you next of the _Chapelle de St. Nicholas_; which you
will find intrenched under the _Palais de Justice_. This is the “_Sainte
Chapelle_,” made famous by the Lutrin of Boileau. It is the most
classical, as well as the most holy of the churches of Paris. It was
built by St. Louis. It was here he stowed away the relics he brought
from the Holy Land. The “real crown” was one of them, which he bought
for eighty thousand dollars, and which, walking barefooted, and
bareheaded, and preceded by all the prelates and dignitaries of the
kingdom, in solemn procession, he deposited in this shrine. There were,
besides, Moses’ rod and a great many other such miracles, which the
Emperor of Constantinople manufactured, they say, expressly for his use.
And, also, a great variety of presents from popes, cardinals, and other
holy men, of less equivocal value. A light was burnt here, as in the
Temple of Vesta, and a priest waked and watched over them at all hours
of the night. They are now--what remains from the sacrilegious and
pilfering fingers of the Revolution--in the sacristy of Notre Dame; and
their place is supplied by old musty records of the Palais de Justice;
lawyers’ declarations, and nasty crim. con. cases--even to the receipt
of the Marchioness de Brinvilliers for making the poison she tried so
effectually upon her father, husband, and brother. Boileau is buried in
this chapel, made immortal by his verses.
For architectural effect, the Madelaine has an unquestionable
superiority over all the churches of Paris. It has the advantage of a
very favourable site; terminating with one flank, the view from the
Boulevards, and fronting the Rue Royale, and Place Louis XV. It is
mounted on a basement of eight feet, ascended on its entire perimeter by
thirty steps. It is a parallelogram of three hundred and twenty-six, by
one hundred and thirty feet, surrounded in double peristyle, by
fifty-two Corinthian columns sixty feet high. On the south pediment, is
represented in bas-relief, the Day of Judgment; the figures of sixteen
feet. In the middle is Christ, and at his feet Madelaine, a suppliant.
The rest of the group, is of angels, and allegorical vices and virtues;
covering a triangular surface of one hundred and eighteen feet in
length, and twenty-two in height.
The interior is a rich and variegated picture. The eye is dazzled at the
glittering aspect of its gilding and fanciful decorations; its Ionic and
Corinthian pillars. On each flank are three chapels to be adorned with
painting, and at the extremity is the choir in the shape of a
demi-cylinder, with Ionic pilasters which extend along the two aisles.
It was begun in the year of our Independence; it was the “Temple of
Glory” in the Revolution, and has got back to its religious destination.
It has neither dome nor spire, nor any of the usual emblems of a
Christian church, except the sculpture; so that in the event of another
Revolution, it may be converted into an Exchange or Bank, or the temple
of some Pagan divinity, or a Mosque, without much expense of alteration.
The good lady, Notre Dame, is the largest of the Parisian churches. The
adjoining houses squat down in her presence and seem to worship her; and
she is not only admirable for her beauty and richness, but for her
sense. She has the history of eight centuries in her nave. She has the
whole of the Old and New Testament in pictures on her walls, or in
groups of statuary, in her chapels. When you sit down under the arched
vaults, one hundred and twenty feet over your head, and amidst these
massive columns, you see flitting about your imagination, such
personages as Queen Fredegonda; or if you please, you can see the pretty
Marchioness de Gourville confessing, instead of her sins, her tender
loves for the Archbishop of Paris. You can live back into those times
when Henry IV. was d----d, and Ravaillac, being anointed and prayed
over, in bad Latin, went to heaven.
The light is let in upon her dread abodes by one hundred and thirteen
windows, each bordered with a band of painted glass. There are three
circular ones painted in the thirteenth century which are not matched,
for the delicacy of the stone-work, and brilliancy of the colours, by
any thing of modern art.
The choir is paved with precious marble, and enclosed by a railing of
polished iron; in the centre of it, is an eagle in gilt brass seven feet
high, and three and a half from wing to wing, which serves as a reading
desk. Its wainscoting is sculptured with scriptural pieces, and a great
many sins in the shape of toads and lizards are carved upon it. It
terminates near the sanctuary with two archiepiscopal chairs of great
beauty.
The other day, in climbing up through one of the towers, from which
there is a splendid panoramic view of the city, two hundred and four
feet in the air, I fell in with that famous old bell, Emanuel, whose
clapper alone weighs nine hundred and seventy-six pounds. Clappers of
this kind do not speak on ordinary occasions. This one announces in a
very hoarse and solemn voice, only the approach of some great festival,
or an extraordinary event. On July 27th, five years ago, it pealed at
midnight, and all night long, the awful tocsin of revolt; and upon these
two towers, the tricoloured flag floated triumphant on the 29th.
It was to this church that the world used to come in their gala dresses
to thank Providence for all those victories which are carved on the
great triumphal column; every time a bulletin came in from Italy and
Germany announcing the event, and when a new prince ascended the throne.
They came here to thank God for Louis XVIII. then for Charles, and then
for Louis Philippe. Providence is always sure of its thanks in this
church, whichever side is uppermost.
In Paris, the meanest hovels are striving which shall be nearest the
church. Notre Dame is a venerable and noble lady, with a brood of filthy
and ragged children about her. We have the same ungracious image often
in America. In Philadelphia, there is but a step from St. Stephens’ to
the Stews. This is chiefly caused by the vicinity of grave yards; a
senseless arrangement, which has happily grown out of fashion in this
country. It is deplorable that we should patronize every silly practice
that Europe is shaking off.
The fashionable church, of all the churches, is St. Roch’s, of which I
have spoken in a former letter. To this, the old lady queen, and the
little queenies, and all the prettiest women of Paris, come to be
blessed every Sunday. A fine woman is a hymn to the Deity, said some old
philosopher. If you wish to see a great number of these hymns, praising
most eloquently the workmanship of their divine Author, come to St.
Roch’s about twelve. A priest told me there was more merit in saving a
pretty woman than an ugly one, on account of the enormity of her
temptations; an ugly one goes to heaven of herself. The skill of the
musician makes the only distinction between the hallelujahs of St.
Roch’s, and the addios of the Italien.
While on the chapter of churches, I must not forget the Cathedral of St.
Denis, a few miles out of town, the burial place of the French kings.
The village, which was built on account of the church, and its
monastery, and the number of pilgrims that resorted there, is now as
filthy and stupid as suburban villages always are. About ten thousand
persons are doing penance by living there; enough to take them to heaven
without any other effort. In 1436 it was taken and rifled by the
English, who frightened the nuns desperately, and carried off their most
precious things. A bit of the iron grate or gridiron on which St.
Francis was burnt, and the prophet Isaiah’s bones, with not a few of the
little nuns themselves, were amongst the articles stolen. The cathedral
is gothic and magnificent. On the first floor, you will see the tomb of
_Dagobert_, the founder; a splendid mausoleum of Francis I., in white
marble, and opposite, the tomb of Louis XII., surmounted by the naked
figures of the king and his consort in a recumbent posture, and the
tomb of Henry de Valois, with the images of Henry II., and Queen
Catharine de Medicis. In the centre of the basement, is a vault of
octagonal shape, which contains the ashes of the monarchs all in a lump.
----“Dead but sceptered sovereigns,
Who rule our spirits in their urns.”
These verses have lost their meaning: but the little urn saith “more
than a thousand homilies.”
Around the circumference are cenotaphs, upon which the several kings
repose in marble at the side of their marble wives. Two unanointed men
were admitted amongst them; Duguesclin and Turenne. Bonaparte removed
the latter to the Invalids, and Duguesclin was lost entirely in the
Revolution. The convention issued a decree for the total destruction of
this royal cemetery in 1793. The first graves examined were those of
Henry IV., and Marshal Turenne. Both these heroes were as fresh, as the
day they were killed, while all those who had died in the natural way,
were in a state of dissolution. The kings were transferred to a vulgar
grave, with the grass only of the field for a monument; the ghosts of
the mighty Bourbons were turned loose to range upon the commons: the
lead too was stripped from the cathedral to shoot the enemies of the
Republic. The church was repaired by Napoleon, who destined it to be the
burial place of “the Emperors.” _Diis aliter visum._ Fortune provided
him a much more remarkable grave. Future ages will no doubt go on a
pilgrimage to St. Helena; here he would have mingled with the rabble
dust of the French kings.
The farther reparation of the church was reserved for the piety of Louis
XVIII. I walked out to St. Denis as the saint did once himself, except
that he carried his head under his arm. Returning home, as I was no
saint, I got into a _coucou_ at the side of some queer old peasant women
and heard their conversation. I am sorry the dignity of my subject does
not allow me to report it to you in this letter.
Many others of these churches seem to me very entertaining, but I must
postpone them to another time; with only a respectful look upon the
great _St. Sulpice_ in front of my window, whose huge towers are staring
me reproachfully in the face; and I must say a word in parting with the
subject of the _Chapelle Expiatoire_ of the Madelaine. This chapel is
placed over the ground in which reposed for twenty-two years the bodies
of Louis XVI., and Marie Antoinette. The interior is in form of a cross.
In the centre, is the altar, exactly over the spot in which the royal
bodies were found, and in the lateral branches are their statues. The
entrance through an alley of yew trees, sycamores and cypresses, gives
it the air and solemnity of an antique tomb. It is the most mournful
spot of all Paris. On the Sunday mornings, mass is said here with great
solemnity; and early every day you will see a few persons kneeling in
silent worship by the altar, or in solitary corners through the church.
The duties of the Catholic churches are administered by an Archbishop
with an annual salary of 5,000 dollars; three vicars general, 800
dollars, and between two and three hundred priests at 300 dollars each.
The grand Rabbin has 1200; the little Rabbins from one to four hundred,
and a protestant clergyman has from two to six hundred dollars. So you
see, the French patronize all sorts of religions, and Moses and St.
Peter come in alike for their share of the church funds. But what a
change of circumstances! The church revenue of France was, before the
Revolution, twenty-seven millions of dollars; at present it is six
millions. The clergy of old France exceeded four hundred thousand; of
“young France,” they are rated at thirty thousand!
In the service of a French Catholic church, there are officers in a
military costume; there are processions and pageantry, and loud and
impassioned music. Every thing is prepared for vehement impressions, for
theatric effect. I should like a religion intermediate between this
Catholic vivacity and our Presbyterian dulness. Whoever believes that
any association of men can be held together without forms and ceremonies
has much yet to learn of the nature of his species, and whoever would
dispense with even the forms which are ridiculous in society, would be
himself the most ridiculous man in it. Still, some regard is to be had
in this to the popular sentiment and spirit of the age.
There is certainly much absurd and trumpery ceremony kept up in this
church, designed formerly for a mass of ignorant people, when the
general sense of the world and the infidel propensities of the French
have got far a-head of it. That Louis XVIII. should go all the way to
Rheims and be greased with some drops saved from the Jacobins, of that
same oil or “holy cream” brought by a dove from heaven to anoint king
Pepin, was presuming too far upon the stupidity of the times. Surely the
age of such nonsense and bigotry has gone by. The elevating the host and
processions through the church, are neither solemn nor dignified, and
what position has so little dignity as that of the priest kneeling at
the altar, with a little boy holding up the tail of his surplice in the
face of the congregation?
In these times of popular education, every body reads and reasons, and
general learning, by cheap publications, is brought within every one’s
reach. The common man, who is fed by twopenny knowledge, is almost as
learned upon common affairs, as the gentleman who feasts upon his guinea
a volume; so that a ceremony that was very solemn in the last age, may
be very notable for its absurdity in this. Not half a century ago, a
doctor of medicine did not visit a patient in this city unless his head
was first wrapped in a huge wig--_perruque à trois marteaux_; and if he
forgot his cane with the golden head he turned back for it, though his
patient in the mean time should die. A ring too, with a diamond on his
finger, and laced ruffles, were indispensable to his practice. In
condemning this Catholic flummery, I do not go into the opposite
Presbyterian extreme, and proscribe what is rational and sensible, the
music, the paintings, and statuary. There is no more occasion in these
times to take measures against idolatry than against witchcraft; and why
deprive our churches of what gratifies the senses innocently, excites
devotional feelings, and improves the taste and understanding?
But to keep a religion now in favour with the world, requires
unexceptionable virtue on the part of those who administer its duties;
and the celibacy of the priesthood seems to me directly adverse to such
a requirement. It is not likely, that human nature will be controlled in
one of her strongest impulses with impunity. When I see these rosy and
smart looking priests, who haunt the churches, and reflect upon the
penchant of the women for holy men, I cannot help wishing, for the sake
of the catholic religion, that they were married. I would not go bail
for any one of them under the merit of St. Anthony.
The intrigues and libertinism of the French and Italian clergy are
matters of authentic history. There was a time when a cardinal’s hat
depended on the patronage of the candidate’s mistresses. The Cardinals
de Retz, Richelieu, Mazarin and Dubois were the notorious roués of the
day. I see here every where a set of jovial-looking monks, with their
caps over the right eye, who would drink your health in the sacristy.
Besides, when the cares of men are limited to themselves, they lose some
of the best qualities of the human heart; they become selfish. I never
knew an old maid, a bachelor, or even a married woman without children,
who was not an insupportable _egoist_, unless the affections nourished
by matrimony were supplied from other sources; and the concern men have
for their children brings out their religious as well as their social
qualities into continual exercise. Not only the strongest defence
against immorality, but the foundation of every public virtue is laid in
the domestic affections. The Athenians would not allow any one to vote
who had not a child; if I were pope, I would not permit any one to
preach who had not a wife, and I would take one myself to set them the
good example.
I am sorry the interior arrangements of our American churches, both
catholic and protestant, are so opposed to architectural beauty. The
pew has an air of habitation; it has the comfort, it has the sacredness
of home. Families, accustomed to see each other, the year round, grow
into acquaintance; and, even without the intercourse of words,
experience the joy of a friendly meeting. The humble man, also, has the
satisfaction, one day in seven, of seeing himself in company with those
of better fortunes, on something like terms of equality. When one gets
the apostles and all the saints on one’s side, one rises almost to the
dignity of any body. A great man, too, can, in a church, associate a
little with his inferiors without compromising his importance: all which
is lost in this random and desultory way of sitting about upon chairs,
as in the French churches.
A great evil of our American churches is, their great respectability, or
exclusiveness. Here, being of a large size, and paid by government, the
church is open to all the citizens, with an equal right and equal chance
of accommodation. In ours, the dearness of pew-rent, especially in the
Episcopal and Presbyterian, turns poverty out of doors. Poor people have
a sense of shame; and I know many a one who, because he cannot go to
church decently, will not go at all. This is an evil we must bear, to
avoid the greater one of a church establishment. We suffer
disadvantages, also, from want of religious uniformity. A thin settled
community, which is just able to support one clergyman, starves three or
four, or dispenses altogether with their services. A first-rate
Methodist would rather not go to church at all, than take part in the
litany; and what good Presbyterian, would not rather be d--d, ten times
over, than be seen at a mass?
In a diversity of sects, also, we are given to dogmatise too much, and
define articles of faith; to follow the letter rather than the spirit of
religion. The French catholic believes (if he believes any thing) in the
power of absolution, in the real presence, and in the infallibility of
the pope; without inquiry into the absurdity of such belief, we
dogmatise and doubt and reason ourselves into infidelity; and, though we
can see no essential difference in the prayers and sermons of our
different clergymen, we cling to our own, as indispensable to our
salvation.
Our clergy, too, of the same denomination, are often falling into
schisms, in which they too often show jealousy, malice, and other bad
passions, which brings religion itself into disrepute. Are these things
worse than the abuses and corruptions of undivided church
establishments?
The manner of keeping Sunday is a subject of general censure amongst our
American visitors at Paris. There is no visible difference between this
day and the others, except that the gardens and public walks, the
churches in the morning, and the ball-rooms and theatres in the evening,
are more than usually crowded. In London, the bells toll on the Sunday
most solemnly; the theatres and dancing rooms are silent, and all the
shops (but the gin-shop) shut; yet the poor get drunk, and the equipages
of the gentry parade their magnificence in Hyde Park, of a Sunday
afternoon.
“How do you spend your Sundays,” said a Frenchman, condoling with
another, “in America?” He replied: “_Monsieur, je prends médecine._” A
Frenchman has a tormenting load of animal spirits that cannot live
without employment: he has no idea of happiness in a calm; and it is not
likely that he will remain _endimanché chez-lui_ during the twelve hours
of the day, or that his Sunday evenings would be better employed than in
the theatre and ball-room.
This is my opinion; but I have great doubts whether a man ought to have
an opinion of his own, when it does not correspond with that of others,
who are notoriously wiser than himself. I cannot easily persuade myself,
that nature has intended the whole of this life to be given up to a
preparation for the next, else had she not given us all these means of
enjoyment, all these “delicacies of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits
and flowers, walks and the melody of birds.”--Now this is enough about
French churches.