they give us in exchange for our souls? You know,—we will not speak of it.

But, indeed, if these sects survive the month which sees and which produces them; and, if these questions which they debate, and these systems which they bring before the astonished People, are destined to serve as enigmas to posterity; what will the future say of us? It will only explain the Materialism, Atheism, and brutality of the doctrines and sects by which we have been disturbed for ten or twelve years, as the nightmare of a starving People, whose dreams have, for an object, only a frantic satisfaction of the senses. All these philosophies, or all these deliriums, are the deliriums or philosophies of the stomach! “All this epoch,” future historians will say, “the French must have been a nation distressed by a terrible famine, to have forgotten, in so total an eclipse of the intellectual nature, the great and immortal ideas which have alone inspired even these, the human race, and rendered the revolutions of the People worthy of the regard of posterity, and of the blood of man. The Eighteenth Century must have been a time when avaricious Nature shut up her bosom, and the earth brought forth neither fruit nor harvests, that this great intellectual People, formerly called the French People, should have forgotten their souls for a morsel of bread, their immortality for an income, and their God for a dollar! Let us turn away our eyes and weep over that age.”

XVI.

See where we were when the Republic arose: happy was it that the People had at bottom more of the true sentiment of God than these masters and heads of sects. For, what would have become of us, if, in that total eclipse of government, of armed force, and of law, which followed the 24th of February, the People, masters of all, of the fortunes and lives of the citizens, of Heaven and earth, had been a People of Materialists, of Terrorists, and of Atheists? The Revolution would have been a pillage, the Republic a scaffold, the dynasty of the People a deluge of blood. But there was no such thing. God was there. He revealed Himself in the multitude; Materialism disappeared in enthusiasm, which always exhibits the divinity of the human heart.

We heard but one cry,—“Honor to God! Respect for the altars! Liberty to their ministers! Self-denial, harmony, protection to the weak, inviolability of property, assistance to the miserable!” Yes,—on the first day, and during the whole time that the People was alone and burning with excitement, it was religious! It was not until after the cooling of this enthusiasm that the materialistic sects, who waited their opportunity afar off, and who now torment the People, dared to offer their sensual symbols, and to set up Capital and Interest, the organization of labor, the increase of wages, and equality of conditions in this human manger, as the sole Divinities,—dared to infuse envy against the happy, the breath of hatred as the only consolation to the hearts of the miserable, lightning vengeance against the wrongs of Providence, imprecations against society, blasphemies against the existence of God, the enjoyments and bestialities of the corporeal nature, purchased by complete forgetfulness of the moral nature, and enjoyed in a debauch of ideas, and in a deification of matter.

This cannot last; the People will not allow themselves to be changed into hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignation against their transformers. A day will come when they will see that they are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, when they are robbed of their souls and of God, both their titles to liberty are stolen from them. Atheism and Republicanism are two words which exclude each other. Absolutism may thrive without a God, for it needs only slaves. Republicanism cannot exist without a God, for it must have citizens. And what is it that makes citizens? Two things,—the sentiment of their rights, and the sentiment of their duties as a republican People. Where are your rights, if you have not a common Father in Heaven? Where are your duties, if you have not a Judge between your brothers and you? Republicanism draws you in both these ways to God.

XVII.

Thus, look at every free People, from the mountains of Helvetia to the forests of America; see even the free British nation, where the Aristocracy is only the head of liberty, where the Aristocracy and Democracy mutually respect each other, and balance each other by an exchange of kindnesses and services which sanctify society while fortifying it. Atheism has fled before liberty: in proportion as despotism has receded, the divine idea has advanced in the souls of men. Liberty lives by morality. What is morality without a God? What is a law without a lawgiver?

I know well, and I shall give you the reason hereafter; I know well, and I mourn to think of it, that, even up to the present time, the French People have been the least religious People in Europe.

Is this because the intelligence of France has not that force, and that severity, which are needed to carry long enough and far enough the idea of God,—the greatest idea of the human soul;—that idea, as it comes from all the evidences of nature, and all the depths of reflection, being the most powerful and the most grave of human intelligence,—and the intelligence of France being the most superficial, the most light, and the least reflecting of the European races?

Is it because our governments have always been charged with thinking, believing, and praying, for us?

Is it that they have always given us gods of the Court, worship according to Etiquette, and religions of State, instead of letting us form, make, and practise our faith for ourselves, by reason, by free-will, by voluntary piety, by association, by tradition, by the sympathies of the community, of worship, and of the family?

Is it because we are, and always have been, a military People, a nation of soldiers and adventurers, led by kings, heroes, ambitious men, from battle-field to battle-field, making conquests and not keeping them, ravaging, dazzling, charming, and corrupting Europe, and bearing the manners, vices, bravado, lightness, and impiety of the camp into the homes of the People?

I do not know; but it is certain that the nation has an immense progress to make in serious thought, if it wishes to maintain its liberty. If we look at the comparative character, in matters of religious sentiment, of the great nations of Europe, America, and even Asia, the advantage is not on our side. While the great men of other nations live and die upon the scene of history, looking towards heaven, our great men seem to live and die in entire forgetfulness of the only idea for which life or death is worth any thing; they live and die looking at the spectators, or, at most, towards posterity.

Thus, even at the present time, while we have had the greatest men, other nations have had the greatest citizens. It is great citizens that a Republic needs!

XVIII.

Open the history of America, the history of England, and the history of France; read the great lives, the great deaths, the great sufferings, the sublime words, when the ruling passion of life reveals itself in the last moments of the dying,—and compare them!

Washington and Franklin fought, spoke,