Resolved thenceforward to consecrate his life to the worship of the new God who had called him to Him, and to the study of His doctrines, he passed into Italy, and, with the aid of a large fortune, which one of his uncles, a Catholic like himself, had left to him, he built this convent where we now are."A friend of mine, who has just come from Italy, says that he has there left Messrs.Sp--r, P--l, and W.Dr--d, who were the lights of the great church in Newman Street, who were themselves apostles, and declared and believed that every word of nonsense which fell from their lips was a direct spiritual intervention.These gentlemen have become Puseyites already, and are, my friend states, in the high way to Catholicism.Madame Sand herself was a Catholic some time since: having been converted to that faith along with M.
N--, of the Academy of Music; Mr.L--, the pianoforte player; and one or two other chosen individuals, by the famous Abbe de la M--.
Abbe de la M-- (so told me in the Diligence, a priest, who read his breviary and gossiped alternately very curiously and pleasantly) is himself an ame perdue: the man spoke of his brother clergyman with actual horror; and it certainly appears that the Abbe's works of conversion have not prospered; for Madame Sand, having brought her hero (and herself, as we may presume) to the point of Catholicism, proceeds directly to dispose of that as she has done of Judaism and Protestantism, and will not leave, of the whole fabric of Christianity, a single stone standing.
I think the fate of our English Newman Street apostles, and of M.
de la M--, the mad priest, and his congregation of mad converts, should be a warning to such of us as are inclined to dabble in religious speculations; for, in them, as in all others, our flighty brains soon lose themselves, and we find our reason speedily lying prostrated at the mercy of our passions; and I think that Madame Sand's novel of Spiridion may do a vast deal of good, and bears a good moral with it; though not such an one, perhaps, as our fair philosopher intended.For anything he learned, Samuel-Peter-Spiridion-Hebronius might have remained a Jew from the beginning to the end.Wherefore be in such a hurry to set up new faiths?
Wherefore, Madame Sand, try and be so preternaturally wise?
Wherefore be so eager to jump out of one religion, for the purpose of jumping into another? See what good this philosophical friskiness has done you, and on what sort of ground you are come at last.You are so wonderfully sagacious, that you flounder in mud at every step; so amazingly clear-sighted, that your eyes cannot see an inch before you, having put out, with that extinguishing genius of yours, every one of the lights that are sufficient for the conduct of common men.And for what? Let our friend Spiridion speak for himself.After setting up his convent, and filling it with monks, who entertain an immense respect for his wealth and genius, Father Hebronius, unanimously elected prior, gives himself up to further studies, and leaves his monks to themselves.