It is understood, I believe, that a child, or even a man, is likely to be
most sincere while persevering in that religion in whose belief he was
born and educated; we frequently detract from, seldom make any additions
to it: dogmatical faith is the effect of education. In addition to this
general principle which attached me to the religion of my forefathers, I
had that particular aversion our city entertains for Catholicism, which
is represented there as the most monstrous idolatry, and whose clergy are
painted in the blackest colors. This sentiment was so firmly imprinted
on my mind, that I never dared to look into their churches--I could not
bear to meet a priest in his surplice, and never did I hear the bells of
a procession sound without shuddering with horror; these sensations soon
wore off in great cities, but frequently returned in country parishes,
which bore more similarity to the spot where I first experienced them;
meantime this dislike was singularly contrasted by the remembrance of
those caresses which priests in the neighborhood of Geneva are fond of
bestowing on the children of that city. If the bells of the viaticum
alarmed me, the chiming for mass or vespers called me to a breakfast, a
collation, to the pleasure of regaling on fresh butter, fruits, or milk;
the good cheer of M. de Pontverre had produced a considerable effect on
me; my former abhorrence began to diminish, and looking on popery through
the medium of amusement and good living, I easily reconciled myself to
the idea of enduring, though I never entertained but a very transient and
distant idea of making a solemn profession of it.

At this moment such a transaction appeared in all its horrors; I
shuddered at the engagement I had entered into, and its inevitable
consequences. The future neophytes with which I was surrounded were not
calculated to sustain my courage by their example, and I could not help
considering the holy work I was about to perform as the action of a
villain. Though young, I was sufficiently convinced, that whatever