courts from trying laymen; bringing the clergy under the civil jurisdiction, when charged with ordinary offences; and leaving to ecclesiastical tribunals no cognizance of causes not strictly connected with religion 3. § 8. But Rome soon found matter for more serious and indignant reflection, than any likely to be afforded by princes who professed a respect for her communion, while they sought additional power at her expense, and an elevation of their subjects above her baser superstitions. In France, it seemed, at one time, as if no terms of any kind would again be made with popery. The church of that country was very wealthy, possessing, besides tithes, nearly half of the land, and hence had become a mark for that envy accumulating in inferior life, which ranged all over the kingdom; especially after the popular infusion which flowed from the assistance given to the revolted colonies of British North America. It had lost also much of its hold upon the superior classes of society, from the general prevalence of a scoffing infidel spirit, which would hear of no reform in the national religion; considering its base pagan alloy as an integral part of Christianity itself; and that, consequently, the whole system was one grand imposture, which a Lucian or a Voltaire might fitly ridicule, and which an enlightened age was bound to overthrow. Even the inferior clergy were very little of a counterpoise to this growing mass of irreligious prejudice. They were, indeed, highly respected generally among their poor parishioners, to whom they rendered every service in their power, and the best instruction that error grafted upon truth allowed. They had, however, rather a loose degree of attachment for the ecclesiastical institutions of their country as a whole. Their own circumstances were generally straitened; those of their superiors the reverse. Now, men will commonly bear this inequality with tolerable patience, under the buoyancy of hope, when the wealth or splendour in sight may also be within reach. But this alleviation of his narrow lot was hardly open to the humble French ecclesiastic, however sanguine might be his temperament. It is true, that the excessive advantages of birth, which really were the cancer 3 Ibid. 220. Alison's French Revolution, Edinb. 1833. i. 76. of France before the revolution, did not theoretically operate upon the church. Any one of her sons might rise to the highest dignities; and occasionally such a fortunate individual started from inferior life. But practically, there was little or no hope of this. The ecclesiastical grandee was nearly always the kinsman or near connexion of lay grandees: by their influence he had gained his easy and splendid position; in their society, and with their habits, he spent his time; he was, in fact, a man of fashion, no less than they, though with more learning, and some external differences; and he naturally nurtured all that insolent consciousness of belonging to a caste indefeasibly superior, which the higher French inherited from the long and jealous possession of exclusive, unjust, irritating privileges. The inferior clergyman was thus kept at a galling distance from the more fortunate members of his own profes sion; and feeling hardly any thing in common with them, he was easily led into the same views, as to their pretensions and position, that were gaining ground every day, as to the lay aristocracy. Hence it happened, that when the long-branded and excluded classes began to clamour with a voice of thunder for the rights of merit without hereditary advantages, the parochial clergy generally were found among the assailing party. Upon the personal merits of the superior clergy, very different impressions have prevailed; some representing them as generally vicious, others as far from unworthy of their profession. Most probably, the latter was their preponderating character, however it may have been kept out of sight during the storms of the revolution, which was indisposed against an acknowledgement of merit in any wealthy quarter, but least of all in opulent and aristocratic ecclesiastics. § 9. While France was preparing for that meeting of the States-General, which revolutionized the country, the clergy, as might be expected, immediately split into two parties, with all the elements of mutual repulsion. Deputies were chosen, by the prelacy with aristocratic views; by the great body of ecclesiastics, with democratic. To these latter delegates, as to the others from inferior life, an undue weight was impoliticly 5 Alison, 110. given by Neckar, whose infatuation augmented the dangerous rapidity of popular motion, by doubling the deputies from the Third Estate. None felt more keenly the alteration thus given to their position than the higher clergy, who looked with deep suspicion upon the number of parochial ministers and the like, who joined their muster, when the States met, in May, 1789. Some of them, however, headed the great body of lower clerical deputies, who madly joined the lay Third Estate, on the 22d of June, and thus gave it a constitutional weight which before was wanting'. Nothing could show more undeniably the little sympathy, even with their own superiors, which had flowed from a long course of neglect and exclusion, than this rash movement of the parochial clergy. It sealed the fate of the monarchy, and, with it, of the church. In the following August, it was proposed to commute tithes into a money payment; three days afterwards, they were abolished, on a vague understanding that religion should be adequately provided for in another way: a prospect that proved illusory, as, probably, those most active in the abolition meant that it should. Within a few months afterwards, the immense landed estates of the church were confiscated for the purpose of relieving the financial embarrassments of the country, and clergymen were made public stipendiaries. As usual, however, the compensation given bore a strange disproportion to the property seized: about one-fifth of their former incomes was all that the government proposed to allow', and the opulent ecclesiastics of France were thus reduced at once to a lower station than was rightfully their own, and than the interests of religion really required. It is, indeed, easy to say, and such sayings are eagerly applauded by the selfish and envious majority of mankind, that ecclesiastics will never want their due influence in society, unless wanting to themselves. Such seeming truisms are, however, liable to that charge of error which seldom fails to lurk in abstract generalities: the truth is, that high qualifications, manly independence of sentiment, and sufficient influence over society, cannot be secured to the clergy any • Alison, 127. 9 Nov. 1789. Ibid. 210. 3 more than to other men, unless there is a considerable infusion among them of that pecuniary ease which allures talent, represses the assumptions of wealth, and commands the respect of poverty. But such liberal discernment of the truth is never to be expected from aspiring masses of men generally in narrow circumstances, like the revolutionary legislators of France. They would not even listen to arguments in favour of the inviolability of church-property, founded on its gradual acquisition from the pious munificence of individuals. Nothing could be patiently heard, but assertions that it was all public property: a convenient view, which placed it entirely at the disposal of the dominant party. Ecclesiastical revenues having been seized, the church itself was quickly placed upon a new footing; bishoprics were reduced to the same number as the departments; both prelates and inferior incumbents were to be chosen by the same electors that chose the deputies; and chapters were suppressed'. These encroachments upon the church were quickly followed by an order that all incumbents, under pain of deprivation, should swear to maintain the new constitution. This oath was refused by a great majority of the clerical body; and that proscription immediately began, which plunged churchmen in extreme misery, and confirmed the obstinate irreligion of France. The consummation of this fatal process was reserved for the November of 1793, when Gobet, the bishop of Paris, who had taken the oath to the existing constitution, appeared at the bar of the Assembly, attended by some of the clergy, and abjured the Christian faith. These infamous wretches declared no other national religion to be required than that of liberty, equality, and morality. Equal depravity and folly were exhibited by others of the revolu tionary bishops and clergy; religion was now openly trampled under foot in all parts of France; the plate and every thing else of any value in churches were seized; religious offices of every kind were discontinued; and, to complete the mad insults heaped upon all that really benefits mankind, an impudent operasinger was triumphantly drawn from the National Assembly to the cathedral of Notre Dame, and installed there as the 2 Alison, 216. 3 Nov. 27, 1790. Ibid. 231. Goddess of Reason. Henceforth, that venerable church was to be known by no other name than the Temple of Reason. In 1794, this war against revelation was completed by the formal abolition of the Christian sabbath. Not only the names of the months and days were changed,-and thus traces of anterior heathenism abolished, but also the hebdomadal division of time was abandoned, months being divided into three decades, instead of four weeks'. Every tenth day was to be one of rest, instead of every seventh: an immense loss to the labouring classes, who were thus defrauded of one-fourth of the repose for which they had been immemorially indebted to Christianity. Surely, such of them as had any space left in their hearts for sound feeling, or in their heads for sound reasoning, must have now begun to suspect that their real friends were not among the vociferous claimants of philanthropy and philosophy, but among believers in the Gospel. As a substitute for this holy system, a theatrical sect arose, which adopted its morality, and took the name of Theophilanthropists. They opened four temples in Paris, where a sort of liturgy was chaunted, and moral discourses preached, the ancient attractions of an altar being supplied by an immense basket filled with beautiful flowers, as an emblem of the creation. The vain coxcombs, however, who figured in these pretended religious observances, rapidly fell into contempt, when the first novelty of their performances was gone. So ephemeral, indeed, was their importance, that all mention of them would be almost superfluous, were not their appearance at such a time an undeniable evidence that men must have religion of some sort. § 10. This truth was forcibly shown in 1797, when clergymen were relieved from the penalties of imprisonment, or transportation, to which they had been rendered liable. Attempts were also made to allow the open use of the ancient worship, and even of bells to announce it; to permit crosses again over graves; and to relieve the clergy from the revolutionary oaths. The professed friends to the rights of man were not, however, as yet sufficiently leavened by any respect for the rights of conscience to pass such laws; but their agitation, 4 Alison, ii. 80. 5 Ibid. 598. • Ibid. iii. 329. |