been considering, offered to the
world by the author of "Ecce Homo." It identified the Deity with
Nature:[38] religion, considered subjectively, with sentiment, and
objectively, with civilization; and it regarded Atheists and the
adherents of all forms of faith--with the sole exception of Catholics
--as eligible for its communion. Its dogmas, if one may so speak, were a
hotchpotch of fine phrases about beauty, truth, right, and the like,
culled from writers of all creeds and of no creed. Its chief public
function consisted in the singing of a hymn to "the Father of the
Universe," to a tune composed by one Gossee, a musician much in vogue at
that time, and in lections chosen from Confucius, Vyasa, Zoroaster,
Theognis, Cleanthes, Aristotle, Plato, La Bruyere, Fenelon, Voltaire,
Rousseau, Young, and Franklin, the Sacred Scriptures of Christianity
being carefully excluded on account, as may be supposed, of their
alleged opposition to "sound morality." The priests of the "Natural
Religion" were vested in sky-blue tunics, extending from the neck to the
feet, and fastened at the waist by a red girdle, over which was a white
robe open before. Such was the costume in which La Reveillere-Lepeaux
exhibited himself to his astonished countrymen, and having the
misfortune to be--as we are told--"petit, bossu, et puant," the
exhibition obtained no great success. It must be owned, however, that
the Natural Church did its best to fill the void caused by the
disappearance of the Christian religion. It even went so far as to
provide substitutes for the Sacraments of Catholicism. At the rite which
took the place of baptism, the father himself officiated, and, in lieu
of the questions prescribed in the Roman Ritual, asked the godfather,
"Do you promise before God and men to teach N. or M. from the dawn of
his reason to adore God, to cherish (_cherir_) his fellows, and to make
himself useful to his country?" And the godfather, holding the child
towards heaven, replied, "I promise." Then followed the inevitable
"discourse," and a hymn of which the concluding lines were:

"Puisse un jour cet enfant honorer sa patrie,
Et s'applaudir d'avoir vecu."

So much must suffice as to the Natural Church during the time that it
existed among men as a fact, or, in the words of the author of "Ecce
Homo," as "an attempt to treat the subject of religion in a practical
manner." But, backed as it was by the influence of a despotic
government, and _feli