We were readily admitted into her room, a small square apartment; it was without a carpet, and not peculiarly clean, a description which will apply to most French rooms, indiscriminately. It was hung with absurd little daubs of red and yellow saints, male and female; and facing the window, the end of the little parlour was occupied by a wooden lattice, such as we use in English gardens, with a faded green baize curtain behind it, preventing all insight into the mysteries beyond.

6

We had waited some minutes, when this curtain was softly put aside from within, and a face presented itself-a round, fat, red face. Oh, my imaginings, what a fall was there!'-this jolly face to appertain unto a lady abbess! It was, moreover, at so low an elevation from the ground, that we imagined its owner to be seated. It looked at us for a minute or two, from a pair of little twinkling eyes, and then said in a low and lively tone, Mais, vous m'avez demandé, mademoiselles?'

This was, therefore, the superior herself, and we asked permission to see her convent. She replied that it was not customary; but spoke in so uncertain a tone, that it was evident custom was not here a second nature. She resumed, Mais, vous êtes de la religion?' which one of us mistaking to mean being religious in the abstract, answered in the affirmative. The good mother,' however, was not satisfied; our English dresses and the blue eyes of my companions looked suspicious, and she said again,' Mais, de la religion Catholique?' 'Catholique, mais pas Catholique Romaine,' was the reply. The nun was puzzled, and it seemed very difficult to admit us: however, the key that opens all things but the hearts of honest

men succeeded here, and the magnificent bribe of one franc (ten pence) opened the convent gate.

We had now a full view of the holy mother. She certainly did not exceed four feet and a half in height, and was the fattest little personage we saw in Normandy. Her dress was a coarse black stuff gown, with a coarse white linen collar, and a white binder on her head, which crossed her brow very low down, with a long scarf of coarse black crape thrown over it, which reached nearly to her feet, and is by courtesy called a veil. She led us into the garden, a large high-walled place, containing more apple-trees than flowers, and more cabbages than anything else. As we passed by a large open bowwindow, we were surprised to see a party of ten or a dozen nuns, sitting round a table at work, gossipping and laughing without any restraint; they might have passed for boarding-school girls just dismissed from their tasks. La mère saw that we looked astonished at this indevout merriment, and said that the ladies preferred sitting there, because the room looked on the garden, rather than in their own chambers. This made us cast our eyes to the upper windows, through which we saw the draperies of sundry smart little French beds, not much resembling the furniture of convent cells.

We tried to gain admittance to the rest of the building, but were only permitted to see the chapel, a plain, common-place structure, and the school, where a facetious black-eyed nun was just dismissing a dozen little girls home to dinner, for they were the children of the town's people, and came as dayscholars.

How many broken-hearted novices there might

be here, behind the scenes, I cannot say; how many unwilling girls separated from their families and friends, constrained to dwell where they would not, and to spend their lives in distasteful employments. The impression made on us by what we saw was this, that the professed nuns were a set of worldly chattering women, who lived in ease, comfort, and comparative idleness, and who enjoyed themselves to the best of their ability.

Such was our visit to the Ursulines: we were afterwards within two other convents, but as they were both connected with hospitals, they were duly prepared for inspection, and the grave manners and upturned eyes were all ready for exhibition.

I have done with the romance of convents; the poetry of the thing has passed away with the fat, jolly, little Mère Supérieure.

MAY, 1839.

2 D

A. F.

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.

DEAR MADAM,

WITH the characteristic modesty of a Christian lady, you say that you put my letter into a hand far abler than your own.' Permit me to doubt this. I think that had you answered it yourself your reply would have been abler, at least more consistent, than that of your correspondent. In the first place, though he answers many questions that were not asked, he certainly does not answer the question that was. 'The wish of our correspondent,' he observes, 'is a natural and laudable one-to find an authority for the faith on which he is resting. Our only marvel is that one who signs himself' Clericus' should have this yet to seek.' Now there is a misstatement in the first part of this paragraph, and is there not a little affectation in the latter? He does not want an authority for the faith on which he is resting; he trusts that he has internal evidence of that faith, as well as that which his private judgment has led him to form, from reading the scriptures; he trusts that he feels as well as receives the truths of the gospel. But he wants an authority not depending upon his interpretation of the scriptures, to declare the Papist and the Socinian to be wrong; he distinctly stated that he was driven from the ground of interpretation by the right of private judgment, and from that of experience by an assumption of equal efficacy.' I

will now show why I am not satisfied with the reply of your correspondent. He denies, in the first place, the right of private judgment; so does the 'neighbouring clergyman;' he denies, in the next place, the authority of the interpretation of the church,' so does the Socinian. And what does he give me instead, his assurance that the scripture is opposed both to Popery and Socinianism, a conclusion in which I cordially agree: it is true that he backs this assurance by what seem to me some very able arguments, drawn from scripture itself; but the Socinian will not allow the correctness of his reasoning, nor the Papist the authority of his assurance, so that they fare no better than the too silly' reply of the 'neighbouring clergyman.' In short, will either one or the other, that is the Papist or the Socinian, be inclined to give up their heresy because I think it awful and soul-destroying, and because the same opinion is held by the correspondent of the Christian Lady's Magazine, and by Mr. Blunt, Mr. Bridges, Mr. Bickersteth, and Mr. Baptist Noel. This is indeed giving me authority; but how will my antagonist treat such authority: shall I not be immediately answered by the counter authority of Priestley, Price, Kippis, Turner and Fox? I am surprised that your correspondent does not see this to be only moving the stumbling-stone a few yards further, instead of lifting it out of the way. It is opposing the opinion, or rather the interpretation of one fallible man, to the opinion or interpretation of another fallible man.' is mere quibbling to say, such and such tenets are un

It

'Nothing of the kind was proposed, in the reply to CLERICUS JUNIOR's former letter. That reply most unequivocally threw all 'opinion' and 'interpretations' out of view.