the eucharist, without comprehending a single word of it.

The question is, how to put the greatest restraint upon crimes. The stoics said that they carried God in their heart. Such is the expression of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, the most virtuous of mankind, and who might be almost called gods upon earth They understood by the words "I carry God within me," that part of the divine universal soul which animates every intelligent being.

"You

The catholic religion goes farther. It says, shall have within you physically what the stoics had metaphysically. Do not set yourselves about enquiring what it is that I give you to eat and drink, or merely to eat. Only believe that what I so give you is God. He is within you. Shall your heart then be defiled by anything unjust or base?-Behold then men receiving God within them, in the midst of an august ceremonial, by the light of a hundred tapers, under the influence of the most exquisite and enchanting music, and at the footstool of an altar of burnished gold. The imagination is led captive, the soul is rapt in extasy and melted! The votary scarcely breathes; he is detached from every terrestrial object, he is united with God, he is in our flesh, and in our blood!-Who will dare, or who even will be able, after this, to commit a single fault, or to entertain even the idea of it? It was clearly impossible to devise a mystery better calculated to retain mankind in virtue."

Yet Louis XI. while receiving God thus within him, poisons his own brother; the archbishop of Florence, while making God, and the Pazzi while receiving him, assassinate the Medici in the cathedral. Pope Alexander VI., after rising from the bed of his bastard daughter, administers God to Cæsar Borgia his bastard son, and both destroy by hanging, poison, and the sword, all who are in possession of two acres of land which they find desirable.

Julius II. makes and eats God; but, with his cuirass> on his back and his helmet on his head, he imbrues his hands in blood and carnage. Leo X. contains God in

his body, his mistresses in his arms, and the money extorted by the sale of indulgences, in his own and his sister's coffers.

Troll, archbishop of Upsal, has the senators of Sweden slaughtered before his face, holding a papal bull in his hand. Vangalen, bishop of Munster, makes war upon all his neighbours, and becomes celebrated for his rapine.

The abbé N... is full of God, speaks of nothing but God, imparts God to all the women, or weak and imbecile persons that he can obtain the direction of, and robs his penitents of their property.

What are we to conclude from these contradictions? That all these persons never really believed in God; that they still less, if possible, believed that they had eaten his body and drunk his blood; that they never imagined they had swallowed God; that if they had firmly so believed, they never would have committed any of those deliberate crimes; in a word, that this most miraculous preventive of human atrocities has been most ineffective. The more sublime such an idea, the more decidedly is it secretly rejected by human obstinacy.

The fact is, that all our grand criminals who have been at the head of government, and those also who have subordinately shared in authority, not only never believed that they received God down their throats, but never believed in God at all; at least they had entirely effaced such an idea from their minds. Their contempt for the sacrament which they created or administered was extended at length into a contempt of God himself. What resource then have we remaining against depredation, insolence, outrage, calumny, and persecution?-That of persuading the strong man who oppresses the weak that God really exists. will at least not laugh at this opinion; and although may not believe that God is within him, he yet may believe that God pervades all nature. An incomprehensible mystery has shocked him. But would he be able to say that the existence of a remunerating and avenging God is an incomprehensible mystery? Finally,

he

VOL. III.

M

He

although he does not yield his belief to a catholic bishop who says to him," Behold, that is your God, whom a man consecrated by myself has put into your mouth!" he may believe the language of all the stars and of all animated beings, at once exclaiming" God is our creator!"

EXECUTION.

SECTION I.

YES, we here repeat the observation, a man that is hanged is good for nothing; although some executioner, as much addicted to quackery as cruelty, may have persuaded the wretched simpletons in his neighbourhood that the fat of a person hanged is a cure for the epilepsy.

Cardinal Richlieu, when going to Lyons to enjoy the spectacle of the execution of Cinque-Mars and de Thou, was informed that the executioner had broken his leg. "What a dreadful thing it is," says he to the chancellor Seguier, "we have no executioner!" I certainly admit that it must have been a terrible disaster. It was a jewel wanting in his crown. last however an old worthy was found, who after twelve strokes of the sabre brought low the head of the innocent and philosophic de Thou. What necessity required this death? What good could be derived from the judicial assassination of marshal de Marillac?

At

I will go farther. If Maximilian, duke of Sully, had not compelled that admirable king Henry IV. to yield to the execution of marshal Biron, who was covered with wounds which had been received in his service, perhaps Henry would never have suffered assassination himself; perhaps that act of clemency, judiciously interposed after condemnation, would have soothed the still raging spirit of the league; perhaps the outcry would not then have been incessantly thundered into the ears of the populace, the king always protects heretics, the king treats good catholics shamefully, the king is a miser, the king is an old debauchée, who at the age of fifty-seven fell in love with the young

princess of Condé, and forced her husband to fly the kingdom with her... All these embers of universal discontent would probably not have been alone sufficient to inflame the brain of the fanatical feuillant Ravaillac. With respect to what is ordinarily called justice, that is, the practice of killing a man because he has stolen a crown from his master; or burning him, as was the case with Simon Morin, for having said that he had had conferences with the holy spirit; and as was the case also with a mad old jesuit of the name of Malagrida, for having printed certain conversations which the holy virgin held with St. Anne, her mother, while in the womb; this practice, it must be acknowledged, is neither conformable to humanity or reason, and cannot possibly be of the least utility.

We have already enquired what advantage could ensue to the state from the execution of that poor man known under the name of the madman; who, while at supper with some monks, uttered certain nonsensical words, and who, instead of being purged and bled, was delivered over to the gallows?

We farther ask,-whether it was absolutely necessary that another madman, who was in the body-guards and who gave himself some slight cuts with a hanger, like many other impostors, to obtain remuneration, should be also hanged by the sentence of the parliament? Was this a crime of such great enormity? Would there have been any imminent danger to society in saving the life of this man?

What necessity could there be that La Barre should have his hand chopped off and his tongue cut out, that he should be put to the question ordinary and extraordinary, and be burnt alive?-Such was the sentence pronounced by the Solons and Lycurguses of Abbeville! What had he done? Had he assassinated his father and mother? Had people reason to apprehend that he would burn down the city?-He was accused of a want of reverence in some secret circumstances, which the sentence itself does not specify. He had, it was said, sung an old song, of which

no one could give an account; and had seen a procession of capuchins pass at a distance without saluting it.

It certainly appears as if some people took great delight in what Boileau calls murdering their neighbour in due form and ceremony, and inflicting on him unutterable torments. These people live in the fortyninth degree of latitude, which is precisely the position of the Iroquois. Let us hope that they may, some time or other, become civilized.

Among this nation of barbarians there are always to be found two or three thousand persons of great kindness and amiability, possessed of correct taste, and constituting excellent society. These will at length polish the others.

I should like to ask those who are so fond of erecting gibbets, piles, and scaffolds, and pouring leaden balls through the human brain, whether they are always labouring under the horrors of famine, and whether they kill their fellow-creatures from any apprehension that there are more of them than can be maintained?

I was once perfectly horror-struck on seeing a list of deserters made out for the short period merely of eight years. They amounted to sixty thousand. Here were sixty thousand co-patriots, who were to be shot through the head at the beat of drum; and with whom, if well maintained and ably commanded, a whole province might have been added to the kingdom.

'I would also ask some of these subaltern Dracos, whether there are no such things wanted in their country as highways or crossways, whether there are no uncultivated lands to be broken up, and whether men who are hanged or shot can be of any service?

I will not address them on the score of humanity, but of utility unfortunately, they will often attend to neither; and although M. Beccaria met with the applauses of Europe for having proved that punishments ought only to be proportioned to crimes, the Iroquois soon found out an advocate, paid by a priest, who