This little flock, then, not separated but ejected from the national establishment, was the first beginning of a Church at Lyons, which has since created a great sensation, and raised great hopes. The Roman clergy, particularly the Archbishop of Lyons, were at first rejoiced at their extrusion from the national temple, thinking, no doubt, that the vital part of its congregation being cut off, the conversions from Romanism, which had been frequent, would be suddenly stopped. But directly the reverse has happened. The little assembly which could be originally held within a small room of their pastor's house, has so grown, that they have been obliged three times to change their place of meeting. Their present chapel can contain, with some inconvenience, three hundred auditors, and it is on Sundays always full, and sometimes even overcrowded. One of the great objects now is to procure a more spacious hall of assembly, and, if possible, to establish two services in different quarters of the city, it having been found that many who are anxious to attend are prevented by the distance of their residences. The number of members actually admitted to receive the sacrament amounts to one hundred and fifty, and as all who are admitted for the first time are invited to have a previous conversation with the pastor, who, according to the state of mind they exhibit to him, counsels them to participate or not, as it seems right to him, and as this must necessarily keep many away, the number mentioned is certainly very considerable. Of these fifty only were originally Protestants, the rest are all converted Roman Catholics. The first time the Lord's Supper was administered after the separation from the national Church, of the new communicants two-thirds were Protestants, and one-third converted Roman Catholics. On the ensuing Christmas, six months after, when this ceremony again took place, the new participants were two-thirds converted Roman Catholics, and only one-third born Protestants; and since then fresh and considerable accessions have been made and are making from the Church of Rome. With these results before him, M. Monod finds his actual position much more favorable for the spread of the Gospel, than the one he formerly occupied in the National Temple. By his change of situation one strong prejudice is removed from the mind of Roman Catholics. Against Protestantism they have an old grudge, an ancient antipathy. But those who belong not to the national worship seem to them not to be Protestants, but mere preachers and propagators of the Gospel, and against this they have no peculiar hostility; for as they do not know what it is, they feel rather curiosity than any thing else. The new sect of men who are so busy, zealous, and warm-hearted, are not identified in their minds with their old enemies, the Protestants-and this is a great point gained.

I will now give some examples of the way in which the little congregation increases. The following details might seem to have nothing remarkable, if related of any place but Lyons, but that city is the very stronghold of Popish bigotry, where the priests have more power than any where else. The extracts which I am about to give, therefore, from M. Monod's Appeal to Christians, will be found very interesting. They will show how, by means the most despised I should like, however, to know how by any other means

the Gospel is to enter houses, hovels, and obscure corners impervious to public preaching-a great effect has been produced. We often,' says M. Monod in his appeal, 'see new auditors brought to our place of assembly by different motives. Some come at first out of curiosity, and return with better sentiments. Some women came lately to the chapel, procured a Bible, and not being able to read it themselves, got their husbands to read it for them, which brought the whole family to our service. A workman some time ago found a Bible in a friend's house, borrowed it from him, read it to his wife, came with her to hear the Gospel preached, attended our service regularly, were both, by the grace of God, converted at the same time, and had their marriage, which they had previously only contracted civilly, blessed and solemnized in our chapel. A few weeks ago we remarked a whole family who attended regularly the preaching of the Gospel. On inquiry, it was found that one of the members of our Church had spoken of the Gospel in the shop of a hair-dresser. A stranger who was present took the address of our chapel, and has since come to every service with his whole family. On another occasion the exhortations of a Christian friend who often passes through our city were the means of introducing the Gospel into a house occupied by several Catholic families. From this single house six persons, three husbands with their wives, have followed our preaching. In the same house a mother and her daughter, completely under the bondage of the priests, repulsed obstinately the Gospel. For a long time they refused to read the Bible. At last the mother consented to accept of a New Testament. She had not read in it many days, before she consented to go to the chapel. Her daughter, in despair that her mother was about to be gained, wept and implored her in vain to change her resolution, but not being able to prevail, "Well, then," said she, "since you will absolutely go to the chapel, I will go with you, but you shall come to mass with me afterward." They both went, both were gained, forgot the mass, and have since led the most exemplary and devoted lives.' The daughter, however, (for I must be scrupulous in telling the exact truth,) has, subsequent to the publication of the little work from which I have been extracting, wavered a little in her conduct.

To the little Scriptural Church at Lyons are attached two, or rather four, I should say, gratuitous schools,-two day schools, the one for boys, and the other for girls, and two Sunday schools, the one for males, and the other for female adults. The first schoolmaster of one of these schools was a converted Roman Catholic. They are all distinguished by the circumstance which gives them such an emphatic value, viz: in them alone, among all the places of education in the great city of Lyons, is the Bible read. On reflection, however, I must except from this remark the establishment of Mademoiselle Filhol. Here is one of the few boarding-schools in France where female accomplishments may be acquired without the risk of acquiring impiety or superstition with them. In one of the school-rooms above mentioned, was held till lately a meeting called, La Reunion des Questions, in which any one might require from the pastor an explanation of any difficulties he might have met with in reading the Scriptures, and many who VOL. VII.-April, 1836.

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attended were converted, or inquiring Roman Catholics, who were and are harassed by the priests to return to the Church of Rome. These meetings were very useful. The women who were in the habit of coming to these assemblies-for they were not all what we should call ladies-used to bring their work with them, and whatever their fingers accomplished on these evenings was devoted to charitable purposes. These meetings are still continued, but having been transferred to the chapel, they have a character less familiar than they formerly had, and the females bring no longer their needlework with them. Ás for the more solemn services, they take place twice during the week-days, and three times on the Sunday. One of these latter is an English service. M. Monod, though a Frenchman, preaches perfectly well in our language. There are about a hundred English workmen at Lyons employed in the manufactories. For them it is that he has established this service, for he loves our nation, and was grieved to see so many of its natives living like pagans, without any worship. I am sorry to say that his kindness and good-will on their behalf has been hitherto in vain. They will not attend at his chapel, but he perseveres, nevertheless, to preach to almost empty seats. The English workmen indeed at Lyons are a most degraded set of beings. Though they receive high wages, they are most of them in miserable want, through drunkenness. They plunge into vice with an energy which astonishes the French, whose viciousness generally keeps time and tune with their interests, and with an external decency and moderation. I hope that perseverance will at last prevail, and that our countrymen at Lyons will eventually take advantage of the opportunity held out to them of profiting by their native worship offered to them in their native language. Beside this English service, there is also one in the German language, connected with the separated, or rather, ejected, Church.

I have yet to mention certainly the most remarkable characteristic of this little Church. It was originally composed of dissenters without a minister, and of those members of the national establishment who adhered to their expelled pastor. Men so divided in their ideas of Church government, it was hoped, it may well be imagined, by the Romanists, could not long hold together, and their contemplated disunion and dissension, and the great scandal and disgrace which would thereby fall on the reformed doctrines, were, no doubt, looked forward to as effectual checks to all farther conversions. And this would undoubtedly have been the effect of disA thousand arguments, brought from the depths of men's consciences, from Scripture, and from reason, are feeble against a prima facie external fact, against an outward appearance of discord. It is in vain to show that this is only a concordia discors, that uniformity in reality kills unity, that it is but the shroud of extinct life, nothing in all nature being completely uniform except death. Inquirers will always be perplexed and repelled by divergences of opinion, of which they perceive neither the common centre nor the common bond. The secret of wisdom in this matter seems to be to preserve the appearance as well as the reality of unity by leaving ample space for diversity. We are commanded to contend for the faith, but not to contend for forms; and it is on

this principle that the Scriptural Church of Lyons has hitherto produced. Its members have not shut themselves up in an inflexible discipline, which alone gives a narrow and sectarian character to separatists. All who come under the scope of Gospel truth come within their communion. Miserable pettinesses have not yet counteracted the grandeur of their theme; and, if it be permitted to hope so much of human infirmity, I hope they never will. Owing to this spirit of common concord, amidst many differences of small moment, the plan pursued is adapted for extension and acceptance as widely and as generally as the Gospel itself is; and to it I attribute, in a great measure, the success which a Church, whose material means are almost nothing, has met with in one of the most unfavorable spots in France for an evangelizing experiment. It may seem unnecessary to add, after what I have just written, that I have never met in any part of the world with any society of zealous Christians so free from fanaticism as that of Lyons; their warmth and activity are shielded by sobriety; and the false fires of a mere external zeal are quenched in a deep conviction of personal weakness, which ever produces a conceding spirit in all things, which in a broad generality of meaning, are not absolutely

essential.

One of the great proofs that the new Church of Lyons has made numerous proselytes is, that the Roman Church has been roused to an exertion and manifestation of hostility, which, in one respect, has not been exhibited in France for many centuries, and which has excited the popular mind in a manner very extraordinary for that country. Some time ago some Catholics called on Monsieur Monod-mark, not upon the pastor of the National Temple-to demand of him conference respecting some points of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. The conferences were granted. They were first held in one of the school-rooms, but the concourse of auditors becoming always greater, they were transferred to the chapel. There they were carried on, not with intellectual pride and parade, but with seriousness and conscientiousness, and on the whole very amicably, when the priesthood, perceiving that the controversy turned terribly against them, sent a disguised priest, (according to a conjecture amounting almost to certainty,) with his followers into the assembly, who, with tumult and outrage, broke up the discussion. Two thousand five hundred copies of the narrative of these conferences have been sold. Since then a priest has been specially sent to preach in one of the principal churches of Lyons four times a day against the reformed doctrines-so great is the alarm which a little society, altogether devoid of worldly importance, and the object of bitter contempt to its adversaries, has been able to inspire! The apostasy, as the priesthood no doubt termed it, of the fifteen hundred above spoken of, occasioned no sensation of this kind, but there was no question then of the Gospel, and the Gospel is to priests the wormwood that makes them writhe and roar. The particular priest I have just alluded to, is a man of powerful lungs and some eloquence. I have heard him preach. He addresses always a crowded audience, for earnest preaching in a Catholic church is so rare that it causes much excitement. I observed, what perhaps most people have observed on a like occa

sion, that Popish sermons insist exclusively on the external ceremonies and outward marks of the verity of the Church. Sanctity, according to them, resides in a particular organization, and administration, in particular forms; and the individual is supposed to receive it from a material contract with mysterious rites, not from a spiritual influence upon a spiritual essence-his conscience. For this reason Romish preachers are afraid to refer a man to himself, lest in examining himself he should find God; but they refer him to the Church. The great art of this Church is not to awaken but to appease, or only so far to awaken as to bring their appeasing specifics into request. It is true it sometimes meets with stubborn customers, and these must be appeased with a vengeance, by all sorts of austerities. Out of these, its saints are manufactured, and some so called have been really such. Rome to them, as to Pascal, for instance, has realized its own purgatory.

My object has been, since I came into this part of the world, not merely to ascertain the condition of the Churches, but to discover also the state of mind which generally prevails with respect to the Gospel. On this point, not trusting to my own observations, which, on the whole, have been very satisfactory, I have consulted those whose long experience gives them a right to pronounce a more decided judgment than I could do. Monsieur Monod especially, whose temperament is by no means sanguine, and who from his position is more capable of forming a correct opinion than any one else, has assured me that he thinks there is a general movement abroad, not toward Protestantism as Protestantism, but toward the Bible. The word 'Bible' is a sound which has been unfamiliar to French ears for many centuries; it has, therefore, superadded to its venerable name the attraction of novelty; and the old rotten garment of Popery falling from off the shoulders even of the populace, they turn naturally, in their instinctive tendency to clothe themselves with another vestment, toward it, as to the only source from which their want can be supplied; they have no longer that shuddering aversion to the word of God-which bigoted Papists still retain; they are led by curiosity, or a better impulse, to see what is in a book so much talked about, and they BUY it, for it is rarely offered as a gift. In proof of this I have to state the fact, that two thousand copies of the New Testament have been sold within the last two months by two colporteurs treading the same ground, for they go in couples, in the single little department of the Ardeche. Colporteurs, in general, are particularly anxious to make a plentiful distribution in the vicinity of some preacher of the Gospel. They were lately well received in a village about four leagues distant from Lyons. Monsieur Monod immediately betook himself to the spot. A room was given him to preach in, and the people flocked in crowds to hear him. For some time after, these people had the Gospel preached to them once every fortnight. This circumstance is very remarkable. Here we see a spontaneous movement among unmixed Catholics who had been left totally undisturbed in their creed, and examples of the kind are numerous. It is true that mere curiosity often draws crowds together on such occasions, and that but few remain constant to the last. But this very curiosity shows how lightly those who give way to it esteem their own