258 BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX, [1697. 



seem to afford great Attention. Very often, and especially a 

 Mornings, a Priest walks thro' the Street carrying a little 

 / hnow not what, over whose Head is born a sort of Canopy, 

 and a great multitude follows this Idol very devoutly. They 

 have likewise very great Processions, in which they carry a 

 sort of Cross, and Standards of divers shapes and colours. 

 These are things which I have often seen. 



Furthermore when you ask tlie most Sensible among them 

 what they Worship, they answer very well, that they 

 Worship but one God, no more than the Hollanders ; that 

 the Human Figures you see in the Temples, are only 

 Eepresentations of Men and Women, who have formerly 

 liv'd well, and are now in a state of Happiness ; that the 

 Adoration tliev pay them is not of the same kind with that 

 they pay to God ; that they honour them only on God's 

 account, because they are his intimate Friends ; and as for 

 the other Statues of different forms, whereof some seem to 

 Strangers so ridiculous and ill favour'd, it could not be 

 thought that they believ'd them to be any thing but 

 inanimate Matter, how^ever, they affirm'd they represented 

 mysteriously the various Virtues or Attributes, as we speak, 

 of the most high Power which has made the World ; and 

 that these Figures were very proper to captivate the attention 

 of a People, who could not be extraordinarily mov'd at 

 any thing bat that they fancy'd in their Imaginations, and 

 who were accustom'd to call that' nothing, which was 

 invisible : That a Hieroglyphick, for Example, with an 

 hundred Arms inspir'd them with an Idea of a great Power, 

 and dispos'd them to the profoundest Acts of Humiliation ; 

 and that it w\as the same of the rest. This brings into my 

 Memory the Christian Exposition,^ which the Learned Bishop 



1 Jacques-Benigne Bossuet was born at Dijon, 28th September 1C27. 

 When Bishop of Condom, in 1671, he published his celebrated Exposi- 

 tion cle la foi CathoHtjue, after he had succeeded in reuniting ]\1. de 

 Turenne (the great Turenne) to the Catholic Church. This book of 



