ir varying creeds,
With all who send up holy thoughts on high."

But I could not bring myself to like the continual circulation of
several officials throughout almost the entire service, collecting rents
for seats (they were let very cheap), and begging money for "the Poor of
the Church;" as a stout, gross, absurdly overdressed herald who preceded
the collectors loudly proclaimed. I think this collection should have
been taken before or after the Mass. There was no sermon up to one
o'clock, when I left, with nearly all the audience, though there may
have been one afterward.

XV.

THE FUTURE OF FRANCE.

PARIS, Wednesday, June 11, 1851.

"Will the French Republic withstand the assaults of its enemies?" is a
question of primary importance with regard to the Political Future, not
of France only but of Europe, and more remotely of the world. Even
fettered and stifled as the Republic now is--a shorn and blind Samson in
the toils of the Philistines--it is still a potent fact, and its very
name is a "word of fear" to the grand conspiracy of despots and owls who
are intent on pushing Europe back at the point of the bayonet into the
debasement and thick darkness of the Feudal Ages. It is the French
Republic which disturbs with nightmare visions the slumbers of the
Russian Autocrat, and urges him to summon convocations of his
vassal-Kings at Olmutz and at Warsaw,--it is the overthrow of the French
Republic, whether by open assault or by sinister stratagem, which
engrosses the attention of those and kindred convocations throughout
Europe. "Put out the light, and then put out the light," is the general
aspiration; and the fact that the actual Republic is reasonably
moderate, peaceful, unaggressive, so far from disarming their hostility,
only inflames it. Haman can never feel safe in his exaltation so long as
Mordecai the Jew is seen sitting at the king's gate; and if France is to
be a Republic, the Royalties and Aristocracies of Europe would far
sooner see her bloody, turbulent, desolating and intent on conquest
than tranquil and inoffensive. A Republic absolutely ruled by Danton,
Marat and Robespierre would be far less appalling in the eyes of the
Privileged, Luxurious and Idle Classes of Europe than one peacefully
pursuing its career under the guidance of Cavaignac, De Tocqueville or
Lamartine.

While in England, I could not but smile at the delusions propagated by
the Press and readily credited as wel