1826. ] 
the more we recognize, the more ardent 
are our aspirations for higher degrees, till 
we finally reach the sphere of infinite per- 
fections; and thus, the passion reveals to us 
the Deity. Fear again conducts to the 
same result. Naturally we are afraid of 
every thing. Ignorance is the parent of 
fear. At first we are ignorant of all, and 
of course fearful of all. As our knowledge 
of immediate causes increases, fear va- 
nishes ; but then~a fear of another kind 
springs up. As we come to understand 
second causes, our fear of them indeed va- 
nishes; but there comes into the place of 
them the primary cause of all which is 
one, and which is shrouded im clouds and 
darkness ; and of that one impenetrable 
eause our fear augments in proportion as the 
secondaries vanish, or rather are absorbed in 
the primary. Thus fear reveals the almighty 
power, as love demands and reveals its in- 
finite perfections of benevolence. Pain, 
again, coupled with the sense of our own im- 
becility, drives us to the search of succour 
among our féllows; we confide in their as- 
surances of aid—in their fallacious preten- 
sions—till we discover their incompetency, 
and then we fly to superior powers, and 
thus on, on we go, till we reach the su- 
preme, the one physician and consoler, the 
preserver of all. Faith, in like manner, 
works the same effect. It is delightful to 
confide in something. Every one feels the 
want of it. It is imperative upon our na- 
ture. It is as decided a pleasure, as de- 
cided an impulse, as love, or hope, or grati- 
tude; and hence it is that mankind are so 
early and so continuously imposed upon by 
the designing of all countries, under the 
form of priests’arid obis.. When increasing 
experience awakens our intelligence, and 
enables us to detect and resist imposition, 
we have still need of confiding, and this 
need it is that discovers to us, after all 
other supports forsake us, the omnipo- 
tent—the ‘ rock of ages.’ 
But in every intermediate step of the 
progress of our love, fear, sense of want, 
and confidence—always directed to some- 
thing stperior, advancing from that which 
is immediately and only just beyond us, to 
the grand supreme, the resulting feeling— 
the religious fecling, that is—is still the 
same; the object of that feeling once pass- 
ing the limits of known and recognized hu- 
man powers, is God—call the Deity by what 
name’you will; and thus all ‘ forms of reli- 
gion’ should seen: equally acceptable, pro- 
ceeding aS they’ do from the same passions 
Of our natin'e, iMpelling us towards a supe- 
Hor, or rather to the supreme cause. 
Now the present age has made a prodi- . 
‘Wions start and Wdvanee in knowledge ; that 
Is} we Suppose, if hus discovered to a greuter 
‘extent ‘than before, that the existing and 
Visible World—the world with which we 
hve to do—presents us Jess to love, less 
td fear, }ess means of relieving our growing 
‘sense of imbecility, less and less proofs of 
kK 
Domestic and Foreign. 539 
deserving our reliance; and consequently 
compels usmoreand more to:throw ourselves 
upon the great cause of catises for the full 
gratification of our wants and wishes. 
This then is, infact, if we rightly com- 
prehend -M. De Sismondi, to be more and 
more religious; and he therefore insists 
that though the present age—( with his eye 
chiefly on the French and the Jesuits)—be 
less regardful of ‘forms of religion,’ as the 
inyentions or corruptions of men, they are 
more deeply impressed by the great sourees 
of religion, which nature almost’ sponta- 
neously opens to them, with the right ‘and 
rectitude of going themselves straight to 
the Deity, as alone incapable of deceiving, 
and accessible to every human being with- 
out the interventions of priests or preten- 
ders. But this is quite independent of all 
forms or modes of faith ; the conviction 
strengthens and settles that all men address, 
directly or indirectly, by design or in fact, 
the same being, though in different, ways, 
and the final result must be general and 
mutual toleration. These reprogressive im- 
pressions of the nation the Jesuits distinctly 
perceive; but contrasting them with the 
absence, or rather the renunciation, of re- 
ligious feeling in the worst pericds of the 
Revolution, they absurdly suppose tlie na- 
tion is ready again to drop into their arms, 
and are busy accordingly,—full of liopes, 
and full of manceuvres to realize these 
hopes. ; 
M. De Sismondi with some reason as 
sures them they grossly mistake the matter, 
and that no efforts of theirs will ever bring 
back the nation to the system of supersti- 
tion which it has risen immeasurably above. 
M. De Mennais, the organ of the party, 
on the one hand, exhibits and urges to the 
government the blessed age of St. Louis as 
the great exemplar, by which all, ecclesias- 
tical and civil, should be modelled; and 
M. De Sismondi, on the other, with his 
unequalled knowledge of the events of the 
middle ages, presents a list of facts, the. 
very produce of that age, and of the spirit 
that ruled it, enough to make every hair of 
our heads bristle with horror, and startle 
even M. De Mennais himself, : 
The sum of M. De Sismondi’s opinions, 
then, with respect to the Catholic Church, 
is, that the people of France have advanced 
in the spirit of charity and piety beyond 
the belief and conception of the Jesuits ; 
that the Jesuits have mistaken the tone and 
strength of these feelings, and fondly flatter 
themselves an opportunity is presented, not 
to be lost by them, for ineuleating submis- 
sion, and recovering their ancient SE 
This opposition of priests and people may, 
he thinks, check, but cannot avert the 
course of religious opinion. ‘These are not 
his words precisely, but they conyey his 
meaning correctly, — The effect of the pro- 
gress of religious feelings, resulting from 
the improvement in knowledge among Pro- 
testants, is, with them also, increase of 
3Z2 
