rs did not on this occasion disdain those adventitious
aids, the use of which they had so much declaimed against while they were
the auxiliaries of Christianity.*

* Mr. Gibbon reproaches the Christians with their adoption of the
allurements of the Greek mythology.--The Catholics have been more
hostilely despoiled by their modern persecutors, and may retort that
the religion of reason is a more gross appeal to the senses than the
darkest ages of superstition would have ventured on.

Music, processions, and decorations, which had been banished from the
ancient worship, were introduced in the new one, and the philosophical
reformer, even in the very attempt to establish a religion purely
metaphysical, found himself obliged to inculcate it by a gross and
material idolatry.*--

* The French do not yet annex any other idea to the religion of
reason than that of the female who performs the part of the goddess.

Thus, by submitting his abstractions to the genius of the people, and the
imperfections of our nature, perhaps the best apology was offered for the
errors of that worship which had been proscribed, persecuted, and
ridiculed.

Previous to the tenth day, on which a celebration of this kind was to
take place, a Deputy arrived, accompanied by the female goddess:* that
is, (if the town itself did not produce one for the purpose,) a Roman
dress of white satin was hired from the theatre, with which she was
invested--her head covered with a red cap, ornamented with oak leaves--
one arm was reclined on a plough, the other grasped a spear--and her feet
were supported by a globe, and environed by mutilated emblems of
seodality. [It is not possible to explain this costume as appropriate.]

* The females who personated the new divinity were usually selected
from amongst those who "might make sectaries of whom they bid but
follow," but who were more conspicuous for beauty than any other
celestial attribute.--The itinerant goddess of the principal towns
in the department de la Somme was the mistress of one Taillefer, a
republican General, brother to the Deputy of the same name.--I know
not, in this military government, whether the General's services on
the occasion were included in his other appointments. At Amiens, he
not only provided the deity, but commanded the detachment that
secured her a submissive adoration.

Thus equipped, the divini