justly appreciated the importance of the subject, and was no
stranger to its discussion. Still, he indulged a number of
unreasonable prejudices against Christianity, which he regarded less
in its real nature than its abuses. The superficial philosophy
which preceded the French revolution had dazzled him. He had formed
an idea that religious worship might be offered up with greater
purity than as it had been dictated by the religion of the
Evangelists. Without any intimate acquaintance with the writings of
Condillac and Tracy, he venerated them as the most profound
thinkers, and really thought that the last had carried the branch of
metaphysics to the highest degree of perfection.

I may fairly say that MY philosophical studies had been better
directed; I was aware of the weakness of the experimental doctrine,
and I knew the gross and shameless errors in point of criticism,
which influenced the age of Voltaire in libelling Christianity. I
had also read Guenee, and other able exposers of such false
criticism. I felt a conviction that, by no logical reasoning, could
the being of a God be granted, and the Bible rejected, and I
conceived it a vulgar degradation to fall in with the stream of
antichristian opinions, and to want elevation of intellect to
apprehend how the doctrine of Catholicism in its true character, is
religiously simple and ennobling. Yet I had the meanness to bow to
human opinion out of deference and respect. The wit and sarcasms of
my neighbour seemed to confound me, while I could not disguise from
myself that they were idle and empty as the air. I dissimulated, I
hesitated to announce my own belief, reflecting how far it were
seasonable thus to contradict my companion, and persuading myself
that it would be useless, and that I was perfectly justified in
remaining silent. What vile pusillanimity! why thus respect the