beseech him to show me mercy for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope he will hear my prayer: he has promised to hear the cries of repenting sinners. I have diligently studied Popery and the Reformation: the Protestant religion is the only good religion. It is all found in the Holy Scriptures: from this as from a fountain, all religion must be drawn. Our Lord Jesus Christ is our only righteousness; I need no other: he is all-sufficient."

The sentiments which our author puts into the mouth of Claude, the reader will acknowledge as worthy of that eminent servant of Christ.

FÉNÉLON, more distinguished by his personal and literary excellencies than as the Archbishop of Cambray, is happily introduced by our author, in company with his eminent uncle, the Marquis de Fénélon, a man celebrated in the annals of the French wars, and remarkable in that corrupt age for his devout and pure character. The Archbishop's history is a tangled web of court favors mingled with court frowns. His success as the preceptor of the Duke of Burgundy, one of the Dauphins, was acknowledged by all as extraordinary, considering the natural temper of that Prince. "He was born terrible," says St. Simon, "his behaviour made all who beheld him tremble." As a reward for his success, he was made Archbishop at a period later .than that of our story. Coincident with his elevation, began that series of persecutions which embittered the days of Fénélon, and in which the envy of Bossuet for the growing reputation of the Archbishop, is declared

to have had a large share. From the whole kingdom the latter was receiving the applause due to the man who, by training the Dauphin, was preparing for a wise and useful reign. This, the "eagle of Meaux," could not bear. He found, says a historian of the time, "that if he did not pull down Fénélon, he must see himself eclipsed; and hence he became his unrelenting persecutor. The disgrace of Fénélon was his real object, but the interests of religion was the shallow pretence: no tie, human or divine, restrained the prelate of Meaux: but conscience, honor, decency, were all set aside, that the ruin of his rival might be effected. In order to effect this plan, Louis XIV. must act the part of an abject tool, and Mad. de Maintenon be guilty of base treachery: prelates must contradict their solemn acts, and degrade and dishonor themselves: the Abbé Bossuet, the prelate's nephew, and another ecclesiastic, must circulate the grossest falsehoods and the foulest calumnies: the Court must sacrifice and throw on the wide world most meritorious characters, in order to terrify Rome and influence it in its judgment against Fénélon: the empty pompous monarch must bully the Pope, to ensure a nefarious triumph to the Bishop of Meaux over the Archbishop of Cambray."

The history of the contest cannot be given here. Posterity has vindicated Fénélon, in giving to him not only praise for his genius, but admiration for his simplicity, humanity, moderation, and charity. While yet an Abbé, he was persuaded to be one of the preachers sent among the Protestants of Poictou; but he con

ditioned that all the military should be removed from the theatre of his labors. But he himself states, that distrust, and considerations purely human, occasioned most of the conversions; and that it was to no purpose that he had caused all the apparatus of war to be removed out of sight of the terrified multitude, since the relations of violence in the other provinces filled them with alarm. It is not wonderful that to his gentle spirit such occupation was disgusting; he asked to be recalled.

PELISSON, a name not so well known as some others by the general reader, was that of one of the most bitter and effective agents of the Court in its schemes for extirpating the heresy of Protestantism. It may be questioned whether this man and Mad. de Maintenon, were not more responsible for the horrors of the "Revocation," and the atrocities which preceded it, than any other two of the whole number who were employed in smiting this blow at religion, and, as the event proved, at France. But Pelisson and Mad. de Maintenon were apostate Protestants, and we need not be surprised at their malignity towards the faith they had abandoned. The first, a lawyer of eminence, a fine scholar, and a plausible writer, is called by Bayle, "one of the greatest geniuses of the age." He felt the converting influence of court favor, renounced his religion, and not long after the period at which our story opens, viz., the temporary dismissal, followed by the subsequent restoration of Mad. de Montespan, he was employed in disbursing a large sum, extorted at the confessional from the King as the price of his sin, for the

conversion of Protestants. In this work, the apostate rejoiced: glad, no doubt, to vindicate the selfishness of his own conversion by proving that money could buy others as well as himself. As is commonly the case with interested proselytes, he also wished to establish the sincerity of his conversion by the vigor of his zeal.

He was subsequently implicated in the affairs of Fouquet; and his reputation tarnished by evidences of interestedness. He left his accounts at his death in great disorder. Although he took orders in the Church of Rome, it is doubtful whether he did not die professing the faith he had once abjured and persecuted. His talents, as we see in our story, raised him to companionship in the circle of "the Philosophers."

A more infamous apostate and persecutor is found in Mad. de Maintenon, the grandchild of Theod. Agrippa d'Aubigné, and mistress or wife of the old King, whom she made her tool; herself being the tool of others. She was the unrelenting foe of the people whom she abandoned. At first the teacher of the King's illegitimate children by Mad. de Montespan, she afterwards became his counsellor, in what relation is doubtful. Her letters tell the share she had in persuading the King to yield to the persuasions of Louvois, Le Tellier and others, and extirpate heresy. In the first instance, she blames the severity used, but subsequently bravely surmounted her scruples. That she must have been fully aware of the severity practised, is evident from the advice she gives to her spendthrift brother, to whom she sends a grant of one hundred thousand

livres, viz., to invest it in the purchase of lands in Poictou for she adds, "they will be had there for a mere nothing, on account of the flight of the Huguenots."

Such were some of the actors in that wonderful age of Louis, miscalled the Great. It is enough to prove how faithless to Christianity was the Pulpit, that it should not have raised its voice to condemn the cruelties practised in the name of religion; that, on the contrary, its talent and learning were so often subsidized to the mean purposes of King-worship. Much as may be said of the eloquence of the Pulpit of that time, the fact that it omitted to discharge some of its noblest functions, ought to deprive it of the super-abundant commendation which it has received not only from Romanists but Protestants. To this day France suffers the penalties due to the national crimes of that and the next reign, against which the ministers of God ought, at least, to have publicly protested. When we read the annals of persecution in that kingdom, we can interpret the mystery of the successive convulsions which have since agitated it. It is retribution. It is the verification of the prophetic language of John Knox, when the news of the St. Bartholomew's reached him:. "Sentence has gone forth against that murderer the King of France, and the vengeance of God will never be withdrawn from his house."