in rendering reason subservient to their purposes, it will not be difficult to prove that infidelity itself is but another form of such subserviency. If the alliance between revolution and infidelity were occasional and not constant, we should not insist upon this argument; but, as experience proves the two inseparable, we contend, that the argument which applies to the one holds good with regard to the other also. We again refer to the French Revolution as the great example bequeathed to posterity of the necessary and essential connection which exists between the extremes of political violence and disbelief in religion; and, when we recollect that the same men who had effected the bloodiest revolution the world ever saw, and had discarded and ridiculed religion, then set up human reason as an object of worship, we cannot escape from the conviction that reason, throughout that disastrous and humiliating spectacle, was the mere slave and puppet of the passions, set up to justify their deeds of cruelty and bloodshed, and that she was made to play precisely the same part in supporting infidelity as in justifying revolution. Nothing, indeed, can be more natural than that men who contemplate the commission of great crimes, and are prepared to outrage all the laws of men, should remove the strongest obstacle to the accomplishment of their purposes by destroying the belief in that God who gives to human laws their highest sanction, and threatens vengeance against those who break them. In the case, then, which we are now considering, infidelity clearly flows from the same source with crime; and, if a determination to offend against the laws of man be necessarily accompanied or followed by a disbelief in the existence of a God, how much more must the constant habit and fixed intention of breaking the laws of God, whether written or revealed within our own bosoms, lead to a disbelief in his existence, avowed and justified, if the sceptic is proud enough to defy the opinion of the world, but concealed, though not inactive, if he is vain enough to desire its applause, or prudent enough to avoid its censure. We come then to the point from which we started; and we repeat the opinion we first expressed, that conviction is not the child of reason but of feeling, that our habits of feeling and acting are the real source of our belief; and that, however prominent a part reason may play in the scheme of infidelity, she is still the advocate and the slave of passion. So convinced are we of the truth and of the importance of this principle, that we shall feel no regret even though the observations we have now made on the power of passion shall have answered no better purpose than that of giving us another opportunity of asserting that conviction. Let it not be supposed that we take any credit to ourselves for advocating, much less for discovering, this principle; it is distinctly and constantly asserted in the Bible, which we mention here, not as an argument for natural theology (for, if the Bible be believed, all attempt to establish an independent religion of nature, is misplaced); but that we may not appear to lay claim to originality where we are merely anxious to arrive at truth.

We reserve for our next number some farther illustrations of the principle which we have laid down as the true explanation of the existence of infidelity. And, we may here observe, once for all, what our readers have already remarked for themselves, that we do not profess to write a regular and connected treatise on natural theology, but merely to suggest occasional topics for reflection. Detached essays give more scope for digressions, and encourage a style of writing less strict and regular than that

which would be looked for from the author of a book. We shall, therefore, continue as we have begun, to follow the natural current of our thoughts, though it should carry us somewhat out of the beaten track. Having warned our readers of what they may expect, we shall be able to pursue, with more satisfaction, the path we have chosen.

THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, AND THE PROBABILITY OF ITS REPETITION.

AMID the fearful throng of crimes which await the hour when they may testify against the blood-stained agents of the Romish superstition, it is sometimes difficult to make a selection, when we desire to impress our readers with an unincumbered sense of the character of this awful system by a simple detail of a single fact. Pre-eminent, however, in dark perfidy and frozen cruelty, an alp among the glaciers, stands out the notorious massacre of St. Bartholomew, rendered still more conspicuous by the pains which our adversaries have taken to fix a thoughtful recollection of it in the breast of every true Papist, by the usual commemoration of great national victories, the distribution of a vast number of appropriate medals.

In another point of view it is also of peculiar importance to us, as some of the most able and learned of our opponents in these latter days have thought fit to deny its connection with their so called religious principles, or the head of their system, and to ascribe it solely to the half-condemned policy of the French monarch in crushing, by means apparently unjustifiable, a "wicked conspiracy" against his throne and the constitution. Certainly the executors of the Popish decrees do not escape the usual fate of the instruments of villany. Whether successful or unsuccessful, they must expect to have all the obloquy, and, in one of the cases, all the punishment, attached to the transaction, thrown upon their shoulders, whilst their "ghostly advisers," having once set them on, skulk quietly away; and, if charged with participation, take refuge behind the "principles of the Church." But, it is from this shelter that we purpose to drag them, and to show, in this brief article, that the horrid slaughter of which we speak was in exact accordance with the principles of their system; and that, as the system remains unchanged, they must be perfectly prepared to re-enact it even at the present day. And let no one think that a delay of the practice is a proof of the abandonment of the principle, but rather recollect the judicious maxim of Bellarmine:

"When the heretics are stronger than we, and there is danger lest, if we attack them in war, more of us should fall than of them, then we should keep quiet!"

We shall first give the historical sketch of this awful deed, and then consider the various methods by which recent writers have sought to obliterate this condemning proof against the character of their system.

Of all the Popish countries, France has ever been least under the

control of the Romish despot, and the Gallican Church has, at various periods, made a determined stand against his usurped authority.

In that country the Reformation had made considerable progress, and had been for some time favoured by Francis I., and even by the perpetrators of the bloody tragedy, Catharine de Medicis, the queen mother, and Charles IX.; but, whether from a sincere desire to reform the abuses of which she complains in her letter to the Pope, after the famous Poissy controversy in 1561, or from hatred to the Guise faction, the bitter enemies of the reformation, who had deprived her of all influence, and tyrannized over the king himself, does not sufficiently appear. This, at least, seems clear, that the various injuries done to the Protestants previous to the death of the Duke of Guise, in 1562, proceeded rather from the faction which he commanded, and which was devoted to the court of Rome, than from the nation, which made common cause with them in resisting his tyranny, or from the state, which seemed to regard them as a counter-check to his prevailing power. Whilst Catharine wrote to the Pope, in their defence, that "they were neither anabaptists nor libertines that they believed the twelve articles of the creed; and that many pious persons thought they ought not to be cut off from communion with the Church," and granted an edict of toleration, it was the Duke of Guise's retainers who, on their march to Paris to revenge this insult, slaughtered a whole congregation, men, women, and children, whilst at their devotions. It was the Guises who procured an edict from the French parliament (having first seized by force the young king and his mother,) for a general massacre of the Protestants, who, however, having immediate recourse to arms, succeeded in defeating their atrocious purpose.

It may be mentioned here, as an instance of the natural connection between all the great designs of the Papacy, that it was the same monarch (Philip of Spain) who, under the sanction of the Pontiff, fitted out, in 1588, the Invincible Armada, that now assisted the Guises with troops and money for the extermination of their common foe; whilst, to Queen Elizabeth, the protectress of the distressed Protestants, Condé successfully applied for assistance. But, after the death of Guise, and the partial fall of his faction, the court of Rome was obliged to apply to higher powers, and to draw in the king and queen mother to the prosecution of their savage designs. Whether they would of themselves have persecuted their Protestant subjects is uncertain, though, from their prior conduct, the probabilities are rather against it; but it is at least matter of fact, vouched by Popish as well as Protestant historians, that every means was resorted to by the Pope and his agents, to gain their consent, or to stimulate them to action.

In 1564, the Cardinal of Lorraine went to Rome, where he concerted measures with the Pope against the Hugonots, and he was the chief contriver of the plot, concocted at the conference at Bayonne, in 1566, to exterminate them by a general massacre. To this meeting, which, like its fatal successor, veiled its dark design under the mask of innocent gaiety, the plan of the massacre is traced by the best Romish historians.

The infamous Duke of Alva proposed the immediate assassination of the Protestant leaders, observing that " one salmon was worth a hundred frogs," but the Queen and the Cardinal desired that their plot should be so matured as to secure an universal slaughter. The Protestants, however,

decided it for them, by taking up arms, on the information of the young Prince of Bearn, afterwards Henry IV., who overheard the conversation, and compelling their enemies, after a severe battle, to grant them a fresh act of toleration; notwithstanding which, however, it is said that above. two thousand of them were assassinated in three months.

The course of dissimulation, however, was (comparatively speaking) but at its commencement. In 1570, they obtained a free indemnity for the past, and a solemn renewal of the edict for liberty of conscience, and, the more effectually to lay their suspicions to rest, a marriage was proposed between the Duke of Anjou, brother to the king, and Queen Elizabeth. This peace, it is agreed by the most eminent Romish historians, was intended principally to involve them (the Protestants) the more surely, and the more easily, in a general massacre."

Throughout the following year a perfect peace apparently reigned in France, with the greatest good-will to the Hugonots; whilst Charles, at twenty-two years of age, was planning the massacre of so many thousands of his subjects. At last the fated time approached, and, in the words of Papire Masson, in his account of the Clades Parisiensis, "when a desperate disease seemed to require a cure full of anxiety and danger, and to admit of cure in no other way than by cunning and cruelty, he first made use of cunning, in the shape of the marriage of his sister Margaret and Henry of Bourbon, Prince of Bearn." To this high festival, in pursuance of his deliberate scheme, planned in concert with the Pope, Coligny and the other Protestant leaders, with the Queen of Navarre, were invited. She died suddenly in June, 1572, as was generally supposed, by poison.

In July, the court removed to Paris, to celebrate the nuptials, which took place upon the 18th of August. On the 22nd an ineffectual attempt was made upon the life of Coligny, by an assassin hired by the Guises. It is singular that this occurrence did not excite his suspicions, or those of his party; for, the day after, he sent letters to his friends throughout France, assuring them that his wounds were not mortal and to trust that the king would do him justice. All then remained quiet, and the king and his counsellors had full and undisturbed opportunity to put their horrid plot in practice. The monarch, however, who, thirty hours before, had expressed the deepest sympathy for Coligny's wound,—“ Father, the wound is yours, but the pain is mine!"-was visited with compunctions or cowardly apprehensions as the fatal moment approached, his frame trembled, and the perspiration stood in cold drops on his brow. The masculine spirit of Catharine, however, prevailed. Standing by his side, she forced from him the command to give the signal. The fatal great bell of the palace rang, and the massacre commenced. The old and venerable admiral, who had served his country with fidelity under Francis I. and Henry II., and attained the highest honours in the armies as well as the navies of those sovereigns; of whom the Romanist, Lereux du Radier, says, against whom no one knows how to bring a reproach, excepting that of the misfortune of having supported a bad cause," and who, when he was warned of his danger, immediately previous to the St. Bartholomew, exclaimed, "I would rather be dragged,

1 Pére Griffet: Traité des Prêches: 137.

dead through the kennels of the streets of Paris, than find myself the chief of a new civil war," was wounded by an hired assassin of the Guises, and cast out of the window into the street, where his head was immediately struck off, and carried away to be embalmed, as a fitting present for the Pope. His body, shockingly mutilated, was dragged through the streets of Paris, and hung by the heels at the place of execution, exposed to the scorn of the populace. On being wounded in both his arms, he said to Maure, preacher to the Queen of Navarre, "O my brother, I now perceive that I am beloved of my God, seeing that for his most holy name's sake, I do suffer these wounds."

The savage soldiers, joined by the infuriated populace, then rushed through the streets, and, breaking into the houses in which Protestants resided, and which had been previously marked, murdered all sexes and ages indiscriminately. The king stood at a window of his palace, crying "kill, kill," and with his own hand fired several shots at the flying wretches. Throughout that dreadful night, the stroke of the murderer and the shriek of the victim resounded incessantly. The morning sun, on the 24th, beamed on a vast slaughter-house, through which reeled the insatiate slayers drunk with the blood of their victims, and horridly boasting of their sanguinary exploits. For eight days and nights the work of massacre and pillage continued incessantly, and every hiding-place was carefully searched for the very semblance of a lurking Protestant. During the first three days, the slaughter was greatest, and gradually relaxed, as the butchers became weary, and the sufferers more scanty. The bodies of the dead were carried in carts and thrown into the river, which was incarnardined with gore, and whole streams in various parts of the city ran with the blood of the slain. It is said that, in one day only, two thousand were murdered. No mercy was shown, under any circumstances. One man, whose wife was on the point of confinement, was stabbed before her eyes, and she was thrown out of a window into the street, in which fall she was delivered of her infant, to the horror even of the surrounding savages. One villain, having seized an infant, the child began to play with his beard, and to smile upon him. Unmoved by its caresses, the monster stabbed it with his dagger, and threw it into the river. De la Place, the president of the court of requests, was inveigled out of his own house by the Provost Marshal, on the pretence of the king desiring to speak with him, and immediately stabbed and thrown into a stable. Several Papists, too, suffered by private revenge on this favourable opportunity, and Peter Ramus was assassinated by Charpentier, in consequence of a disputation on logic; and his body whipped by "certain scholars, instigated by the malevolency and envy of their tutors."

From the city the carnage, by orders of the king to the various governors, spread rapidly through the provinces, and continued, with more or less fierceness, for an entire month. The monks and clergy were particularly active in instigating it in various places. In the town of Barre, children were cut to pieces, and, their bowels and hearts being torn out, some of the savages gnawed them in their teeth. The Prince of Condé, after promise of his life, was shot by Montesquieu, captain of the Duke of Anjou's guard. At Troyes, a merchant, named Peter Belin, having been at Paris, on St. Bartholomew's day, was sent with letters from the king, dated 28th August, to the mayor and sheriff of Troyes,

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