administered by the Clergy, and they were empowered to receive gifts and bequests of money, houses, lands, signiories, nay even of slaves.

Thus, with so many sources of information, of means and of method, the Bishops became all powerful. It seems from History in what manner they employed power over Kings in the name of the People, in quality of their Pastors; over the People in the name of GOD, in quality of his Ministers and over Popes themselves, in the name of the Gallician Church, in quality of it's Chiefs. Their authority excited the jealousy of Rome. That capital of the Christian world opposed to them the monastic orders, which held immediately of her, though subjected in appearance to the Bishops. The French Clergy then divided into two corps, the secular and the regular. Every power is enfeebled by being divided. The Monks, who formed the regular Clergy, being by their Constitution more united among themselves, and acknowledging but one only Chief, the Pope, extended their power much farther than the members of the secular Clergy, frequently distracted by the affairs of the world, and subjected to various Bishops, who had not always the same views. The secular Clergy domineered in the Cities, the Monks diffused their empire over the Country. They would soon have acquired a decided preponderancy over the whole Kingdom, had they formed only one order, like the Monks of St. Bazile in Russia. But under the apprehension, perhaps, that they should not be able as these last to render themselves independent by their riches, Rome herself divided her own strength

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strength. She introduced into France a great variety of religious orders, the superiors of which resided at Rome; and who not only parcelled out the ecclesiastical functions among themselves, but even invaded a part of the secular employments. Most of them were originally mendicants, and introduced themselves under the pretext, so specious, of charity. The Dominicans, at first preaching brothers, afterwards became inquisitors. The Benedictines became the record keepers in an age when hardly any one could either read or write, and undertook a part of the public education, which communicates so much influence over the mind. They were imitated, and speedily surpassed, by the Jesuits, who united in their own order alone the talents of all the rest, and very soon all their power. Others did not think themselves degraded by compounding essences, preparing chocolate, knitting silk stockings, and engaging in trade. Some were sent as Missionaries into foreign countries. Though preaching Christianity, they accompanied our soldiers in their conquests, and acquired lands in America, and slaves in Africa to cultivate them. Others, as the Mathurins, enriched themselves by begging for the purpose of ransoming Christian captives taken by the barbarians of Africa. They redeemed white slaves, on the Coast of Morocco, because, as they alleged, they were Christians: many other Monks were at the same time purchasing black slaves on the Coast of Guinea, to supply their plantations in America, and making Christians of them to rivet the chains of their captivity.

At

At length the civil power began to open. it's eyes to it's own interests. It set out by withdrawing, in part, the public education out of the hands of the Monks and Clergy, by the establishment of Universities: afterwards Municipal Notaries were appointed, and to them was confided the trust of superintending the making and execution of wills: it was expressly prohibited to bequeath landed property to ecclesiastical corps, already far too rich : but, by one of those contradictions so common in our laws, the parish priests were still enjoined, to keep public registers of births, marriages, and deaths, in the view of ascertaining the state of population. This office clearly belonged to the Municipalities; but the People, inured to servitude, were like the old mule. to which the Athenians granted liberty in consideration of her long services, but which, from being accustomed to the yoke, went voluntarily and took her place among the other mules which were carrying stones to the Temple of Minerva.

Since liberty of conscience has been decreed onè of our rights, it is certain that the Municipalities alone can ascertain the state of the citizens in the three principal epochs of existence, birth, marriage and death. How could Roman ecclesiastics verify as citizens, Frenchmen whom they do not consider as men, seeing they look upon them as enemies to GOD, when they are not of their communion? It is farther evident, that the distribution of alms, the superintendance of hospitals and of all cha ritable establishments, belongs to the Municipalities exclusively. Their compassionate regards aré due to Citizens of every description; whatever their

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their religion may be. It is impossible to behold without astonishment in the Hôtel-Dieu, on the beds of the sick, labels inscribed with the word Confession in large characters. Thus, had the Hôtel-Dieu been at Jerusalem, they would not have received the Samaritan's wounded man into it, because his benefactor was a schismatic, however highly commended by JESUS CHRIST! It is painful to be informed, that the young women placed out of charity in the Salpetriere, are not permitted to pass the gates to take a country walk, before they are twenty years old; and that those who have attained this age cannot go out, be the occasion ever so pressing, without presenting to the porter a certificate of confession. Our hospitals are thus converted into prisons, and poverty is punished in them as a crime! The Municipalities absolutely must emancipate charitable institutions from all ecclesiastical imposition whatever. Liberty of conscience ought to reign in them as liberty of breathing: the interest of all men is concerned in it. The pestilential brand of the inquisition may lie smothered there, like all other epidemic, physical and moral maladies, and thence spread the infection over cities. There are many other abuses which call for reform, respecting the application of their revenues, their police, and even the nature of those establishments, which crowd so many wretches into one place: but I have now indicated those which appear to me the most dangerous.

There ought to be no burying grounds in the interior of cities; the health of their inhabitants is

deeply

deeply concerned in this. There are ancient laws on this subject which remain unexecuted. The accommodation of church-wardens and of the inferior fry who make a gain of interments, is a temptation to infringe them, for they persuade the people that their religious character is involved in the practice. What nevertheless is a church-yard in cities? frequently a common foot path, where bones are confounded and piled up in heaps; there you see deep and open graves, which incessantly emit a mephitic exhalation. An orphan frequently catches his death there, over the remains of him from whom he derived life. Unfortunate mother! thou fondly believest that the little hillock over which thy tears are flowing contains the body of thy daughter: in vain thou consolest thyself with the recollection of her virgin graces; her body is on the marble slab of an anatomical amphitheatre, exposed naked to the eyes, and to the dissecting knife, of young men whom an affected thirst of knowledge has stripped of all sense of modesty. Ye who revere the ashes of your progenitors, remove them far from places where the passions of the living intrude on the repose of the dead. It is only in the fields, and remote from cities, that death as well as life can find a secure asylum. There we could render unto GOD what is due to GOD, and to the elements what belongs to the elements. There, in airy situations, burying-grounds might be enclosed with walls, sepulchral chapels reared in them, and keepers placed to guard them from violation. Nay, they might be planted with trees, which would restore the mephitic air to purity. Nothing