This law appears to be humane and just, as it inflicts a cruel punishment only on a sevenfold repetition, which can hardly be presumed.

But with regard to more atrocious profanations, which are called sacrilege, the criminal ordinance mentions only robbing of churches: it takes no notice of public impieties, perhaps because they were not supposed to happen, or were too difficult to specify. They are left, therefore, to the discretion of the judge; and yet nothing ought to be left to discretion.

In such extraordinary cases, how is the judge to act?—He should consider the age of the offender, the nature and degree of his offence, and particuJarly the necessity of a public example. If the law does not expressly say that such a crime shall be punished with death, what judge shall think himself authorised to pronounce that sentence? If the law be silent, and, nevertheless, a punishment be required, the judge ought certainly, without hesita tion, to decree the least severe, because he is a

man.

Sacrilegious profanations are never committed except by young debauchees. Would you punish them as severely as if they had murdered a brother? Their youth pleads in their favour. They are not suffered to dispose of their possessions, because they are supposed to want maturity of judgment suffi cient to foresee the consequences of an imprudent transaction: is it not therefore natural to suppose that they are incapable of foreseeing the consequences of their impiety?

Would you treat a wild young man who, in his phrenzy, had profaned a sacred image, without stealing it, with the same rigour that you punished a Brinvilliers, who poisoned his father and his whole family?

There

There is no law against the unhappy youth, and you are determined to make one that shall condemn him to the severest punishment. He deserved chastisement; but did he deserve such excruciating torture, and the most horrible death?

But he had offended God!-True, most grievously. Imitate God in your proceedings against him. If he be penitent, God forgives him. Impose a penance, and let him be pardoned.

A calvinist teacher who, in certain provinces, preaches to his flock, if he be detected, is punished with death; and those who have given him a supper or a bed are sent to the gallies for life.

In other countries, if a jesuit be caught preaching, he is hanged. Is it to avenge God that this calvinist and this jesuit are put to death? Have both parties built upon the following evangelical law If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican?" But the evangelist does not order that this heathen and this publican should be hanged.

Or have they built on this passage in Deuteronomy. "If among you a prophet arise, and that which he hath said come to pass, and he saith unto you, Let us follow strange gods; and if thy brother, or thy son, or thy wife, or the friend of thy heart, say unto thee, Come, let us follow strange gods; let them be straightways killed: strike thou first, and all the people after thee?" But neither this jesuit nor the calvinist said unto you, Come, let us follow strange gods.

The counsellor Debourg, the monk Jehan Chauvin, named Calvin, the Spanish physician Servetus, the Calabrian Gentilis, all worshipped the same God; and yet the president Minard caused counsellor Dubourg to be burnt, and Dubourg's friends caused

eaused president Minard to be assassinated; Jehan Calvin caused the physician Servetus to be roasted, and had likewise the consolation to be a principal means of bringing the Calabrian Gentilis to the block; and the successors of Jehan Calvin burnt Anthony. Was it reason, or piety, or justice, that committed these murders?

This history of Anthony is one of the most sin gular which the annals of phrenzy hath preserved.

He was born at Brieu in Lorrain, of catholic pa rents, and he was educated by the jesuits at Pontà-Mousson. The preacher Feri engaged him in the protestant religion at Metz. Having returned to Nancy, he was prosecuted as a heretic, and, had he not been saved by a friend, would certainly have been hanged. He fled for refuge to Sedan, where, being taken for a papist, he narrowly escaped assas sination.

Seeing by what strange fatality his life was not in safety either among papists or protestants, he went to Venice, and turned Jew. He was positively persuaded, even to the last moments of his life, that the religion of the jews was the only true religion; for that if it was once true, it must always be so. The Jews did not circumcise him, for fear of offending the state; but he was no less internally a jew. He now went to Geneva, where, concealing his faith, he became a preacher, was president to the college, and finally what is called a minister.

The perpetual combat in his breast between the religion of Calvin, which he was obliged to preach, and that of Moses, which was the only religion he believed, produced a long illness. He became melancholy, and at last quite mad, crying aloud that he was a jew. The ministers of the gospel came to visit him, and endeavoured to bring him to him

self;

self; but he answered, "That he adored none but the God of Israel; that it was impossible for God to change; that God could never have given a law, and inscribed it with his own hand, with an intention that it should be abolished." He spoke against christianity, and afterwards retracted all he had said, and even wrote his confession of faith, to escape punishment; but the unhappy persuasion of his heart would not permit him to sign it. The council of the city assembled the clergy, to consult what was to be done with the unfortunate Anthony. The minority of these clergy were of opinion that they should have compassion on him, and rather endeavour to cure his disease than punish him. The majority determined that he should be burnt ; and he was burnt. This transaction is of the year 1632.

The tragical end of Simon Morin is not less horrible than that of poor Anthony. It was amidst the feasting, pleasures, and gallantry, of a brilliant court-it was even in the times of the greatest li centiousness, that this unfortunate madman was buint at Paris, in the year 1663. Imagining that he had seen visions, he carried his folly so far as to believe that he was sent from God, and that he was incorporated with Jesus Christ.

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The parliament very wisely condemned him to be confined in a mad-house. What was very remarkable, there happened to be confined in the same mad-house another fool, who called himself God the Father. Simon Morin was so struck with the folly of his companion, that he acknowledged his own, and appeared for a time to have recovered his senses. He declared his repentance, and, unfortunately for himself, obtained his liberty.

Sometime after, he relapsed into his former non

sense,

sense, and began to dogmatize. His unhappy destiny brought him acquainted with St. Sorlin Desmarets, who for some months was his friend, but who afterwards, from jealousy, became his most cruel persecutor.

This Desmarets was no less a visionary than Morin. His first follies, indeed, were innocent. He printed the tragi-comedies of Erigone and Mirame, with a translation of the Psalms; the romance of Ariane and the poem of Clovis, with the office of the holy virgin turned into verse. He likewise published dithyrambric poems, enriched with invectives against Homer and Virgil. From this kind of follies he proceeded to others of a more serious nature. He attacked Port Royal, and, after confessing that he had perverted some women to atheism, he commenced prophet. He pretended that God had given him, with his own hand, the key to the treasure of the Apocalypse; that with this key he would reform the whole world, and that he should command an army of an hundred and forty thousand men against the jansenists.

Nothing could have been more reasonable and more just than to have confined him in the same place with Simon Morin; but can it be believed that he found credit with the jesuit Annat, the king's confessor? whom he persuaded that this poo Simon Morin would establish a sect almost as dangerous as the jansenists themselves. In short, carrying his infamy so far as to turn informer, he obtained an order to seize the person of his rival. Shall I tell it?-Simon Morin was condemned to be burnt alive!

In conducting him to the stake, there was found in one of his stockings a paper, in which he begged forgiveness of God for all his errors. This ought

to