mense compact cake of rich compost; and when
it has filled one of the yards and has completed a thickness of five feet,
he sells it to the farmers, who send their carts to carry it off. He has
divided this enclosure or repository into three or four compartments. The
compost therefore is prepared, and ready to be carried off in one yard,
while the others are filling. In this he has rendered a great benefit to
the public, for the Auvergnats are incurable in their custom of emptying
their _pots de chambre_ out of the windows; so that the streets every
morning are in a terrible state: but thanks to the industry of C---- his
cars go round to collect the precious material, and all is cleared away by
twelve o'clock. He collects bones too, and offal to add to the compost. He
conducted me to see his premises; but the odour was too strong....

I returned to Lausanne by the same route, leaving Clermont on the 6th
April, staying four days at Lyons and as many at Geneva. Young Wardle
accompanied me. We met with no other adventure on the road than having a
young Catholic priest, fresh from the seminary, for our travelling
companion, from Thiers to Roanne. This young man wished to convert Wardle
and myself to Catholicism.

Among many arguments that he made use of was that most silly one, which has
been so often sported by the Catholic theologians, viz.: that it is much
safer to be a Catholic than a Protestant, inasmuch as the Catholics do not
allow that any person can be saved out of the pale of their church, whereas
the Protestants do allow that a Catholic may be saved. I answered him that
this very argument made more against Catholicism than any other, and that
this intolerant spirit would ever prevent me (even had such an idea entered
into my head) of embracing such a religion. I then told him that, once for
all, I did not wish to enter into any theological disputes; that I had
fully made up my mind on these subjects; and that I would rather take the
opinion of a Voltaire or a Franklin on these matters than all the opinions
of all the theologians and churchmen that ever sat in council from the
Council of Nicsea to the present day. This silenced him effectually. Such
is the absurd line of conduct pursued by the Catholic priests of the
present day in France. Instead of reforming the discipline and dogmas of
their church and adapting it to the enlightened ideas of the present age,
they are sedulously employd in preaching intolerant doc