330 Notes of the Month en [MARCH 



' look at my friends they have been more fortunate than I !' and, saying 

 this, he ran up the steps of the scaffold with so much haste and grimace 

 as to provoke a loud laugh from the populace, one half of whom were 

 women ! and who had within the preceding three minutes seen two 

 fellow creatures perish." The fate of those wretched men was now 

 decided, but the " peuplegai" had another indulgence in contemplation. 

 The remains of the executed are put into a large chest, in which they 

 are conveyed to the place of burial for criminals. " The mob entreated, 

 but without success, for the further savage gratification of looking into 

 the case or chest. Disappointed in this, they merrily departed; and 

 this applies to fifty thousand men and women, in equal numbers, of 

 Paris! The laugh, the jest, and the song, were heard on every hand!" We 

 can have no vindictiveness against the French. But details of this kind 

 startle us by their evidence of the tremendous evil which may be waiting 

 its development only for the next great popular commotion in France. 

 The horrors of the " Reign of Terror" rise before our eyes, in such 

 scenes as those, and the question occurs with irresistible force to what 

 is due this propensity to delight in blood, and extinguish in the heart all 1 

 sorrowing and solemn emotions at the sight of things of crime and suffer- 

 ing ? We can find but one solution for the problem. The human heart, 

 naturally tenanted by fierce passions, requires a direction higher than 

 that of human laws or customs. But the religion of France is not capable 

 of giving this direction. A succession of pompous ceremonies, or blind 

 worship, with the populace, have made them singularly insensible to 

 the true power of Christianity on the heart. The same succession of 

 empty forms has made the higher orders, almost to a man, utter unbe- 

 lievers in revelation. They see only a pageant, they justly ridicule the 

 pageantry ; and they will not take the trouble to inquire whether there 

 may not be a system more pure, more devoted, and more authentic. 

 They have been taught to hear Protestantism scoffed at as heresy, or 

 have seen its profession punished as a public crime. Thus the only 

 hope of righteous intelligence is closed upon them ; and the higher ranks, 

 in general, give up life to intrigue, gaming, and utter waste of time* 

 means, and understanding. The lower, where they are not compelled 

 by the salutary restraints of poverty and the peasant life, to the rustic 

 virtues, are ready for every fury of unlicensed passion, and every frenzy 

 of popular overthrow. But all are " the gayest of the gay," and they 

 are equally gay at a feast and at a murder, in a Sunday play-house, and 

 in the presence of an execution. Christianity in France would give 

 them feeling without saddening their hearts ! and supply that rational 

 and generous cheerfulness, without which mirth is the most melancholy 

 thing in the world. 



Perfectly satisfied that, if among the Saints there are some honest men, 

 they are generally foolish enough to give the management of their " Slave 

 Trade" affairs to rogues, we have pleasure in adding, as far as we can, to the 

 public contempt for the trickeries of this troop of politicians in general. 

 Some months ago the public were surprised, and the managers of saintship 

 were in a state of extacy, at the appearance of some statements in \heMorn- 

 ing Chronicle, temptingly headed " Cruelty as at present practised in the 

 West Indies, from an eye-witness" In due time it found its way back 

 to Jamaica, and was there published in a paper called the Watchman,\vhere 

 it met the eye of Mr. Evelyn, the collector of the Customs at the same port. 



