eliverance itself was so greatly beyond hope, so
rapid and complete, and attended by so many wonderful and striking
circumstances, that it was hailed rather with gratitude as an
interposition of Heaven, than with triumph as a victory achieved by
human strength. The newly kindled religious fervour broke forth in
various directions, and produced some remarkable and interesting
changes. Individuals who could not find satisfaction for their
religious cravings in the communion to which they belonged sought it in
another. Religious societies separated from each other by slight
distinctions made approaches to a closer union; those divided by an
insurmountable barrier cherished and maintained more warmly than ever
their distinguishing peculiarities. A new life seemed to be infused
into the old observances of Catholic devotion, and the spirit of
Protestant piety strove to display itself in new forms. Religion became
a great public and private concern; every question relating to it
excited a lively interest; every method of diffusing it was deeply
studied and sedulously practised.

This good however came not unalloyed. Those in whom the religious
feeling was least genuine, those who had merely caught it by contagion
from others, were, as usual, the most anxious to make it prominent and
conspicuous. They thought they could not exhibit too striking a
contrast to the sceptical indifference and irreligious frivolity of the
former age in their language and deportment. Piety, which is of a
retiring nature, seldom conscious of her own actions, and never wishing
them to be observed, was forced against her will into all companies
upon all occasions, was made to occupy the foremost place, to study
attitudes and gestures, to think aloud and deliver herself in set
terms. A new kind of spiritual dialect came into fashion, and
threatened to infect the whole tone of conversation and literature. It
was not precisely the cant which with us is the property and badge of
certain religious sects, and which to unaccustomed ears is either
ludicrous or disgusting; it was a more refined compound of mysticism
and sentiment, rather cloying from excess of sweet, but not without a
charm for the young and inexperienced, and very easy to be caught by
habit or learnt from design. In the endeavour to exclude from society
all symptoms and tokens of the freethinking age, the moral taste grew
alarmingly squeamish, and began to reject the most wholesome food as
sav