or passed by them. They looked as if they were contented and happy. They were all extremely handsome, and quite clean; their linen fine and white, and their gowns a black stuff. The women dined at one table, the men at another; but all sat in the same room. The whole house was in bed by ten, and up by four in the morning, winter and summer. What they said at their table I could not hear, as they spoke low and little, and were at a distance from me, in a large apartment: but the

the sovereign pontiff, renders his speculating religious character very despicable. He was a thorough visionary; and at the same time a thorough papist. The letter he dictated for Lewis the XIVth's confessor, after he had received extreme unction, shews that no man ever had more at heart that monstrous, and most audacious corruption of the Christian religion, called popery. In his expiring moments he conjures that bloody tyrant, the king of France, to order him a successor that will, like him, do every thing to oppose and suppress the Jansenists; the only remaining light within the vast black realms of papacy: Je prendrai la liberté de demandez a sa majesté deux graces, qui ne regardent, ni ma personne ni aucun de miens. La premiere est que le roi ait la bonté de me donner un successeur pieux, et régulier, bon et ferme contre le Jansenisme, lequel est prodigieusement accredité sur cette frontiére."

conversation of the men, at table, was very agreeable, rational and improving. I observed they had a great many children, and kept four women-servants to attend them, and do the work of the house. The whole pleased me very greatly. I thought it a happy institution.

As to the marriage of the friars in this cloist'ral house, their founder, Ivon, in my opinion, was quite right in this notion. Chaste junction cannot have the least imperfection in it, as it is the appointment of God, and the inclination to a coit is so strongly impressed on the machine by the author of it; and since it is quite pure and perfect; since it was wisely intended as the only best expedient to keep man for ever innocent, it must certainly be much better for a regular or retreating priest, to have a lawful female companion with him; and so the woman, who chuses a convent, and dislikes the fashions of the world, to have her good and lawful monk every night in her arms; to love and procreate legally, when they have performed all the holy offices of the day; and then, from love and holy generation, return again to prayer, and all the heavenly duties of the cloistered life; than to live, against the institution of nature and providence, a burning, tortured nun, and a burning, tortured friar; locked up walls they can never pass, and under the govern

in

ment of some old, cross, impotent superior. There is some sense in such a Marriage Chretien in a convent. Ivon's convent is well enough. A cloister may do upon his plan, with the dear creature by one's side, after the daily labours of the monk are over. It had been better, if that infallible man, the Pope, had come into this scheme. How comfortable has Ivon made it to the human race, who renounce the dress and pageantry, and all the vanities of time. Their days are spent in piety and usefulness; and at night, after the completorium, they lie down together in the most heavenly charity, and according to the first great hail, endeavour to increase and multiply. This is a divine life. I am for a cloister on these terms. It pleased me so much to see these monks march off with their smiling partners, after the last psalm, that I could not help wishing for a charmer there, that I might commence the Married Regular, and add to the stock of children in this holy house. It is really a fine thing to monk it on this plan. It is a divine institution, gentle and generous, useful and pious.

On the contrary, how cruel is the Roman church, to make perfection consist in celibacy, and cause so many millions of men and women to live at an eter-nal distance from each other, without the least regard to the given points of contact! How unfriendly

to society! This is abusing Christianity, and perverting it to the most pernicious purposes; under a pretence of raising piety, by giving more time and leisure for devotion. For it never can be pious either in design or practice, to cancel any moral obligation, or to make void any command of God: and as to prayer, it may go along with every other duty, and be performed in every state. All states have their intermissions; and if it should be otherwise sometimes, I can then, while discharging any duty, or performing any office, pray as well in my heart, O God be merciful to me a sinner, and bless me with the blessing of thy grace and providence, as if I was prostrate before an altar. What Martha was reproved for, was on account of her being too solicitous about the things of this life.

Where this is not the case, business and the world are far from being a hindrance to piety. God is as really glorified in the discharge of relative duties, as in the discharge of those which more immediately relate to himself. He is in truth more actively glorified by our discharging well the relative duties, and we thereby may become more extensively useful in the church and in the world, may be more public blessings, than it is possible to be in a single pious state. In short, this one thing, celibacy, were there nothing else, the making the unmarried state a more

VOL. II.

T

holy state than marriage, shews the prodigious nonsense and impiety of the Church of Rome, and is reason enough to flee that communion, if we had no other reasons for protesting against it. The tenet is so superstitious and dangerous, that it may well be esteemed a doctrine of those devils, who are the seducers and destroyers of mankind; but it is, says Wallace, in his Dissertation on the Numbers of Manhood, suitable to the views and designs of a church, which has discovered such an enormous ambition, and made such havock of the human race, in order to raise, establish, and preserve an usurped and tyrannical power.

But as to the Married Regulars I have mentioned; they were very glad to see me, and entertained me with great civility and goodness. I lived a week with them, and was not only well fed with vegetables and puddings on their lean days, Wednesdays and Fridays, and with plain meat, and good malt drink, on the other days; but was greatly delighted with their manner and piety, their sense and knowledge. I will give my pious readers a sample of their prayers, as I imagine it may be to edification. These friars officiate in their turns, changing every day; and the morning and evening prayers of one of them, were in the words following. I took them off in my shorthand.