'success.

But their object was too thinly veiled to escape the observation of their hearers. And, hence, it became a general remark, that money formed the conclusion of all their sermons.

Convents are very often houses of refuge to parish outlaws to persons who have failed in paying their dues or quarrelled with their priests; and they are also the favourite resort of individuals, females especially, who profess singular devotion, and deal much in Agnus Dei's, and other charms and mysteries. I was resolved to try whether the friars could afford a cure for a wounded spirit-whether they could "pluck from the memory the rooted sorrow, or raze out the written troubles from the brain." Accordingly I proceeded to the small convent at GIt was a gloomy winter's day when I approached the sacred asylum—an old building seated on an eminence in the midst of a bleak district of country, and surrounded by a few bare, half-decayed fir-trees, which served but to add to the dreariness of the scene. I was conducted to a room where I found the reverend father seated in a large chair beside a turf fire. He would have reminded a spectator, in a mood less serious than mine, of the "knight of the rueful countenance". '-so mournful was the aspect, so faded the apparel, and so spiritually poor the whole

appearance of the man. There lay in a recess a number of volumes of casuistical divinity-some fragments, I suppose, of Thomas Aquinas and Peter Dens; and, on a side table, I saw some bottles and glasses, and a few numbers of the Weekly Register. Every thing was in keeping. The doors were greatly worn; the painting on the walls had faded; and the furniture seemed to be the mouldering remnants of another generation. Although there was a female housekeeper

"A pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sóber, steadfast, and demure,"

there was no talk-no noise. The dead silence was unbroken, except by the mournful cadence of the wind as it moaned fitfully through the chinks of the doors and windows, or murmured among the trees, or rushed round the unsheltered walls of this secluded habitation. The only thing connected with this establishment that looked modern, and wore the appearance of comfort, was a small chapel which stood within a few perches of the dwelling-house. The solemn silence within, contrasted with the no less saddening sounds from without, "the dim, religious light," which was cast on the apartment, the mortified appearance of the priest-all conspired

THE SPELL BROKEN.

51

to put the mind in a frame which might easily pass for an evidence of genuine repentance. And so, indeed, it was with me. I confessed again and again, and went through a course of painful mortification, and finally received absolution. But the good father had not answered Rousseau's arguments. He merely said they were the suggestions of the devil, and bid me dismiss them from my mind. I tried to do so, and succeeded for a time; but only for a time. I began again to feel that the foundation on which I was standing was insecure. In fact, the spell of the church was broken. I now fearlessly cast off the yoke; and rejoiced in my newly acquired liberty. I seemed to breathe more freely, and to step more lightly. The earth looked greener, and the sky looked brighter, than ever I saw them before. How delightful to be a disinterested spectator of the religious warfare which was now agitating the country! They might curse and denounce one another as they pleased: what was that to me?

Such is the spirit of infidelity. It is a selfish spirit, which leads us to ask with Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?" But though I now adopted the heartless creed of the Deist, it does not follow that I openly renounced the Church of Rome, or forsook the chapel. If this were a necessary

consequence of infidelity, I fear the ranks of Romanism would be thinned of many of its most eloquent and accomplished defenders. There still remained ties powerful enough to secure conformity. The bonds of social affection, the claims of honour, and the force of party-spirit, keep many a secret malcontent quiet in the ranks of Romanism. The mutinous disposition is repressed by prudence. The infidel that acts the bully with his God, is frequently a coward in the sight of man. He takes shelter under the forms of religion, from the tempest of indignation and the arrows of persecution, which an open apostacy might draw on his devoted head. With the friends of religion he wears the smile of friendship, but, assassin-like, he seeks all opportunities of stabbing her in the dark. The incredulous sneer-the dark insinuation-the bitter taunt, gilded with an expression of regret these are the weapons which he carries about, concealed, like the stiletto of the Spaniard, under his mantle of hypocrisy.

I have said that I did not forsake the chapel. Had I done so, it would have brought a very inconvenient suspicion on my character, and would have turned against me the influence of the clergy, powerful when exerted for their friends, and still more so when directed against

their enemies. This is a striking, but unhappily not the only instance that could be pointed out in this country, of the force of political and other earthly considerations, in binding in close confederacy men of the most opposite religious sentiments. Two pieces of loadstone are found powerfully to attract each other when the opposite poles are placed in juxtaposition, while the influence is as powerfully repellent when similar poles are brought in contact. It must be on some such principle as this, that parties, whose distinguishing tenets are "wide as the poles asunder," are closely banded in secular pursuits, while with all the force of the strongest antipathy they shun the men whose faith and hope and religious experience are precisely the same as their own. Thus the most devout Roman Catholic, if a Conservative in politics, will be as obnoxious to the Priests of Ireland, as the most pious and enlightened Protestant, whose political creed is Radical, would be to the English bench of Bishops. Alas! that the love of the world should so far prevail, even among the clergy, as to produce anomalies so perplexing to the inquirer, and so revolting to common-sense and Christian feeling! Still, my dear Friend, we must make large allowance for the infirmities of human nature, the unconscious influence of in