found inexpressible delight. He used to say, that the Holy Scriptures were not a science of the understanding, so much as of the heart; and that they were a science, intelligible only to him whose heart was in a right moral state, whilst to all others they were veiled in obscurity. To this sacred study, therefore, Pascal gave himself, with the ardour of entire devotion; and his success in this line of study, was as eminent as it had been in matters of general science. His knowledge of the Scriptures, and his facility in quoting them, became very great. It was quite remarkable in that day. His increasing love for the truth of religion, led him also to exercise readily all the powers of his mind, both by his pen, and by his very great conversational powers, in recommending religion to others, and in demolishing whatever appeared likely to oppose its progress, or to veil and to deform its truth. An opportunity of the very first importance shortly afterwards occurred, which called forth the exercise of his splendid talents and extensive knowledge in that way which he most especially desired.

The sincere religion of M. Pascal, together with the connection of his family with the religious recluses of the Monastery of Port Royal, had gathered round him as his friends, many of the illustrious scholars and Christians who were associated together in that retirement. About the time when Pascal's mind had been led to the formation of his religious principles, and to the more serious adoption of his religious habits, the Monastery of Port Royal had risen into importanco

and notoriety, which were increased by the difficulties with which it had to contend. Under the superintendance of Angelique Arnauld, sister of M. Arnauld, the celebrated doctor of the Sorbonne, the society of female recluses there, had undergone a very extensive and thorough reform; and many young persons of superior rank and exalted piety had gathered round this renowned leader, and risen under her instructions, and the pastoral guidance of a few excellent men of similar sentiments, the male recluses of the same society, to still loftier attainments in the love of God, and in conformity to his revealed will.

At the same time also, many men of the first talents and acquirements, disgusted with the world, with the fruitlessness of its service, and the falsehood of its promises, and sick of the heartless and dissipated state of society around them, came to dwell together in a retired mansion in the same neighbourhood, and to seek in the solitude of the wilderness, that peace which the world cannot give. Among these were two brothers of the Mere Angelique, her nephews Le Maitre and De Sacy, Nicole, Lancelot, Hermant, and others. Here they devoted themselves to the instruction of youth, both in literature and science, and in religion, and their seminaries soon rose into importance. From this little society of recluses, issued forth many elementary works of learning and science, which became the standard works of the day; and such was their progress and the celebrity of the Port Royal schools, and the Port Royal grammars, and

other treatises, that they seriously threatened the Jesuits with ejection from that high station which they had long almost exclusively held as the instructors and spiritual guides and governors of all the young people of condition throughout France.

The true principle of the Romish apostacy from the simplicity of the Christian faith, has ever been a despotic dominion over the consciences of men. That fallen and false church has, in all the varying phases of its condition, ever held this point steadily in view; and if a few words may delineate the essential feature of her enormous and unchristian pretensions, it is the substitution in the stead of true religion, of a system of terror and power, founded upon unwarranted and unscriptural assumptions, altogether contrary to the spirit of the gospel of Christ, which is the rational dominion of Divine influence over the heart, through the medium of the doctrinal truths of Scripture. To veil, in some degree, this presumption, and to render it palatable to men in general, Rome has gathered round her, in the style of her buildings, the formularies of her worship, the splendour of her attire, and the fascinations of her choral music, every thing that is imposing and calculated to seduce the affections through the medium of the senses. But as knowledge spread among the nations, and the art of printing providentially rendered the suppression of knowledge more difficult, it became necessary to adopt a more efficient system of police to guard all the avenues of this widely extended dominion of priestcraft over igno

rance. The court of Rome, therefore, eagerly availed itself of the plan of Loyola, and the order of the Jesuits was established for the defence of the Roman Catholic church; and never was any system more admirably organized for such a purpose.

Framed from infancy to intrigue, and hardened to all the evils of the morality of expediency, these emissaries of the Roman power formed a complete system of police spread over the whole extent of Papal Christendom; and thoroughly informed, by means of auricular confession, of the secret history of courts, families, and individuals, and bound to each other in the most solemn manner by the covenant of their order, they were prepared to adopt and to vindicate any measures, however infamous, that might advance the cause of the church with which they were identified. History furnishes an abundance of well-authenticated facts of the darkest dye, to shew the boldness with which, at all risks, they rushed on to their object, and the dangerous errors with which they endeavoured to justify their crimes. There is in the unsanctified heart a fiend-like delight in power. Union

is power : and for the sake of feeling that they have that power, men are content to become even subordinate agents, according to their capacities, in a great scheme, that they may thereby realize, by combination, an influence extensive, irresistible, and terrific, which no one could have obtained alone. This is most probably the secret of the efficiency of that system of ecclesiastical espionage; and it certainly was carried to such an

awful degree of success, that the thrones of Europe, and even the Papal tiara itself, trembled before it. It was not therefore to be wondered at, that this powerful body, whose reign over France, at that time, was almost uncontrolled, should behold, with bitter malice, the growing influence and success of a few retired pietists, who now threatened to invade their chartered rights, and by the simple principles of Scriptural truth, to divide, if not to annihilate their power.

But while the prejudices and hostilities of the Jesuits were thus roused against the Port Royalists, it would not have been a consistent Jesuitical ground of complaint against them, to say that they endangered their craft. It was needful to seek an objection against them in the things concerning their God. And they soon found ample food to nourish and to embitter their venom, and to lay the basis of a plot for their ruin, in the sound doctrinal sentiments, and practical piety of these separatists from the corrupt manners of the time. And though probably the sentiments of these gentlemen might have been left unnoticed, but for their interference with the secular interests of the disciples of Loyola, yet when once these artful men had found real ground of hostility in the success of the Port Royalists in education, they were thankful indeed to find a still more plausible ground of assault against them, in the peculiarity of their religious sentiments. They rejoiced at the opportunity afforded to them of covering that envy, which originated in the success of their opponents in a course of honourable rivalry on the