University of Virginia Library

TO THE REVEREND JOHN SHAW.

I find, Sir, what I never doubted, that you are
a gentleman of your word. I thank you for the
agreeable proof which you have given me of it;
and, that I may not be wanting in punctuality, I have
taken my pen to discharge the debt which I acknowledge
is due to you.

Amongst the public edifices which are worthy
of notice in this country, are several churches.
I went, a few days since, to see three of the most
celebrated in Paris. They are prodigious masses
of stone buildings, and so surrounded by houses
which are seven stories high, that the sun seldom
enlightens them. I found them so cold and damp,
that I could only give them a very hasty and transient
survey. The architecture, the sculpture, the
paintings, are beautiful indeed, and each of them
would employ my pen for several pages, when the
weather will permit me to take a more accurate
and critical inspection of them. These churches
are open every day, and at all times of the day; so
that you never enter them without finding priests
upon their knees, half a dozen at a time, and more
at the hours of confession. All kinds of people and
of all ages go in without ceremony, and regardless of
each other; fail upon their knees, cross themselves,
say their Pater-nosters and Ave-Marias silently

and go out again without being noticed or even
seen by the priests, whom I found always kneeling
with their faces towards the altar. Round these
churches, (for they have not pews and galleries as
with us, chairs alone being made use of,) there are
little boxes or closets about as large as a sentry-box,
in which is a small grated window, which communicates
with another closet of the same kind. One of
them holds the person who is confessing, and the
other the confessor, who places his ear at this window,
hears the crime, absolves the transgressor, and
very often makes an assignation for a repetition of
the same crime, or perhaps a new one. I do not
think this a breach of charity; for can we suppose,
that, of the many thousands whom the religion of
the country obliges to celibacy, one quarter part of
the number can find its influence sufficiently powerful
to conquer those passions which nature has implanted
in man, when the gratification of them will
cost them only a few livres in confession?

I was at the Church of St. Roch about ten o'clock
in the morning, and, whilst I was there, about three
hundred little boys came in from some charity seminary
which belongs to that church. They had books
in their hands. They followed each other in regular
order, and fell upon their knees in rows like
soldiers in rank and file. There might have
been fifty other persons in the church at their
devotion. Every thing was silent and solemn
throughout this vast edifice. I was walking with a
slow pace round it, when, all at once, the drear

silence which reigned was suddenly broken by all
these boys at one instant chanting with loud voices,
which made the dome ring, and me start, for I had
no apprehension of any sound. I have never been
to any of these churches upon a Sunday. When the
weather is warmer, I design it. But their churches
seem rather calculated to damp devotion than excite
it. I took such a cold there as I have not had
since I have been in France. I have been several
times to the chapel of the Dutch ambassador, and
should go oftener if I could comprehend the discourses,
which are all in French. I believe the
American embassy is the only one to which chaplains
are not allowed. Do Congress think that their
ministers have no need of grace? or that religion
is not a necessary article for them? Sunday will
not feel so to me whilst I continue in this country.
It is high holiday for all France.

We had a visit the other day from no less a personage
than Abbé Thayer, in his habit, who has become
a convert. His visit was to me, I suppose, for
he was a perfect stranger to Mr. Adams. He told
us that he had spent a year at Rome, that he belonged
to a seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, that he
never, knew what religion was, until his conversion,
and that he designed to return to America in a year
or two, to see if he could not convert his friends and
acquaintance. After talking some time in this style,
he began to question Mr. Adams if he believed the
Bible, and to rail at Luther and Calvin; upon which
Mr, Adams took him up pretty short, and told him

that he was not going to make a father confessor of
him, that his religion was a matter that he did not
look upon himself accountable for to any one but
his Maker, and that he did not choose to hear either
Luther or Calvin treated in such a manner. Mr.
Abbé took his leave after some time, without any
invitation to repeat his visit.