PROVIDENCE.

Aristotle maintained that the barbarians were created expressly to become slaves;—while La Fiteau, a jesuit, who wrote an history of the aboriginal Americans, believed that none but an atheist would dare to say they were creatures of God’s forming. In the same spirit, a modern judge had the assurance to assert that slavery is not contrary to Christianity, because bishops voted for it. Providence is, under all systems, the “prête-nom” for the injustices of man.

Madame de Genlis (Dictionnaire des Etiquettes) says, “Providence has instilled an irresistible love of the marvellous into the heart of man, in order to predispose him for receiving without difficulty the celestial lights of faith.” Unfortunately for the hypothesis, this capital contrivance has been as much at the service of the “devilish darkness” of a thousand-and-one false religions, as of the “celestial lights” of catholicity. If Voltaire had uttered such a sentiment, it would have been said, and with justice, that his object was to bring religion into contempt, and to expose the roguery of priests, who trade upon the weakness of human nature. Men love the marvellous, because they are greedy of strong sensations; and, as this propensity hurries them into false tastes, so it predisposes them to superstition and false creeds. Protestantism has too little of the marvellous for the warm sensibilities of the south; and even Madame de Genlis’s popery is not wonderful enough for the good people of Spain and Portugal.