question, and, in
_their_ names exclaim, "Must we _receive_ for ever? will the epoch never
arrive when our injuries may be redressed, and our sufferings allowed
the soft recompence of manifesting our gratitude?"

O happy donors! compare but thus your subjects for murmuring with the
feelings of your receivers! and do not, because ye see them, bowed down
by adversity, thus lowly grateful for the pittance that grants them
bread and covering, imagine them so unlike the human race to which they
belong, that sometimes, in bitterness of spirit, they can forbear the
piercing recollection of better days; days, when beneficence flourished
from their own deeds, when anguish and poverty were relieved by their
own hands!

Still a little nearer let us bring reflexion home, and entreat those
who having done much, would do no more, to suppose themselves, for a
moment only, placed in _l'Eglise des Carmes_, in Paris, on the 2d of
September, 1792, in full sight of the hapless assemblage of this pious
fraternity, who there sought sanctuary--not for the crimes they had
committed, but for the duty they had discharged to their consciences,
not from just punishment of guilt, but from fury against innocence.

Here, then, behold these venerable men, collected in a body, enclosed
within walls dedicated to holy offices, bewailing the flagitious actions
of their country-men, yet devout, composed, earnest in prayer, and
incorruptible in purity.

Now, then, in mental retrospection, witness the unheard-of massacre that
ensued! Behold the ruffians that invade the sacred abode, each bearing
in his hand some exterminating weapon; in his eye, a more than
fiend-like ferocity. Can it be you they seek, ye men of peace? unarmed,
defenceless, and sanctuarised within the precincts of your own religious
functions!----Incredible!--

Alas, no!--behold them reviled--chaced--assaulted. They demand their
offence? They are answered by staves and pikes. They fly to the
altar--to that altar where, so lately, salvation seemed to hang upon
their benediction.--

Here, at least, are they not safe? At this sanctified spot will not some
reverence revive? some devotion rekindle? Will not the fell instruments
of destruction fall guiltless from the shaking hands of their contrite
pursuers? Will not remorse seize their inmost souls, and vibrate through
the hallowed habitation, in one universal cry of, "O men of God! live
yet--so forgive--and pray for us!"--Ah, deadly sham