the erection of a new social edifice on the ruins of the old, which
should stand and improve in solidity, strength, grandeur, and
beauty forever.

The way he seems to have taken to amass these materials was to engage
with a partner in some grand speculations for the accumulation of
wealth,--and speculations too, it is said, not of the most honorable or
even the most honest character. His plans succeeded for a time, and he
became very rich, as did many others in those troublous times; but he
finally met with reverses, and lost all but the wrecks of his fortune.
He then for a number of years plunged into all manner of vice, and
indulged to excess in every species of dissipation; not, we are told,
from love of vice, any inordinate desire, or any impure affection, but
for the holy purpose of preparing himself by his experience for the
great work of redeeming man and securing for him a Paradise on earth.
Having gained all that experience could give him in the department of
vice, he then proceeded to consult the learned professors of L'Ecole
Polytechnique for seven or ten years, to make himself master of science,
literature, and the fine arts in all their departments, and to place
himself at the level of the last attainments of the race. Thus qualified
to be the founder of a new social organization, he wrote several books,
in which he deposited the germs of his ideas, or rather the germs of the
future; most of which have hitherto remained unpublished.

But now that he was so well qualified for his work he found himself a
beggar, and had as yet made only a single disciple. He was reduced to
despair and attempted to take his own life; but failed, the ball only
grazing his sacred forehead. His faithful disciple was near him, saved
him, and aroused him into life and hope. When he recovered he found that
he had fallen into a gross error. He had been a materialist, an atheist,
and had discarded all religious ideas as long since outgrown by the
human race. He had proposed to organize the human race with materials
furnished by the senses alone, and by the aid of positive science. He
owns his fault, and conceives and brings forth a new Christianity,
consigned to a small pamphlet entitled 'Nouveau Christianisme,' which
was immediately published. This done, his mission was ended, and he
died May 19th, 1825, and I suppose was buried.

Saint-Simon, the preacher of a new Christianity, very soon attracted
disciples, chiefly from the pupil