PERHAPS there is no domain of childish thought and feeling that is more remote from our older experience, and consequently less easily understood by us, than that of religion. Their first ideas about the supernatural are indeed supplied by us, but they are not controlled by us. How oddly children twist the religious ideas of their elders, materializing and anthropomorphizing, is known to all who have had anything to do with the juvenile mind.

To most children, presumably, religious instruction comes-at first at least-with a commanding, authoritative force. The story of the supernatural, of the Divine Father, of Heaven, and the rest, cannot be scrutinized by the child-save, indeed, in respect of its inner consistency-for it tells of things unobservable by sense, and so having no direct contact with childish experience. Their natural tendency is to believe, in a submissive, childish way, not troubling about the proof of the mystery. But even in this submissive acceptance there lies the germ of a subsequent transformation. If the child is to believe, it must believe in its own fashion; it must give body and reality to the ideas of Divine majesty and goodness, and of spiritual approach and worship. Hence the way in which children are apt to startle the reverent and amuse the profane by divulging their crude material fancies about things spiritual.

Such materialization of spiritual conceptions is apt to bring trouble to the young mind. It is all so confusing-this exalted Personage, who nevertheless is quite unlike earthly dignitaries, this all-encompassing and never-failing Presence, which all the time refuses to reveal itself to eye or

belief grows all-commanding and prolific of action.

While, however, it is the common tendency of children to passively adopt their elders' religious beliefs, merely inventing their own modes of giving effect to them, there is a certain amount of originality exercised in the formation of the beliefs themselves. Stories of independent creations of a religious cult by children are no doubt rare; and this for the very good reason that it needs the greatest force of self assertion to resist the pressure of the traditional faith on the childish mind. The early recollections of George Sand, of which a short account was recently given in this magazine, furnish what is probably the most remarkable instance of childish daring in fashioning a new religion, with its creed and ritual all complete. And it may be worth while to give a brief narrative of this strangely-natured and strangelyconditioned child's religious experiences.

Poor little Aurore's religious difficulties and experiments at solution can only be understood in the light of her confusing surroundings. From her mother-ardent, imaginative, and of a "simple and confiding faith"-she had caught some of the glow of a fervent piety. Then she suddenly passed into the chilling air of Nobant and the grandmother, a disciple of Voltaire, and equalling her master in cynical contempt of the revered mysteries. The effect, as might have been anticipated, of this sudden change of temperature on the warm young heart was a long and painful shiver. Madame Dupin at once recognized the girl's temperament, and saw with dismay the leaning to "superstition," a trait which she disliked none the less for recognizing in it a bequest from the despised grisette mother. So she applied herself with all the energy of her strong character to counteract the child's religious tendencies. Now this might have proved neither a difficult nor lengthy process if she had consistently set her face against all religious observances. all religious observances. But though a disciple of Voltaire, she was also a lady with a conspicuous social position, and had to make her account with the polite world and the "bienséances." So Aurore

was not only allowed but encouraged to attend Mass and to prepare for the First Communion" like other young ladies of her station. Madame Dupin well knew the risk she was running with so inflammable a material, but she counted on her own sufficiency as a prompt extinguisher of any inconveniently attaching spark of devotion. In this way the young girl underwent the uncommon if not unique experience of a regular religious instruction, and concurrently with this, and from the very hand that had imposed it, of a severe training in rational scepticism and contempt for the faith of the vulgar.

Even if Aurore had not been in her inmost heart something of a dévote, this parallel discipline in outward conformity and inward ridicule would have been hurtful enough. As it was, it brought into her young life all the pain of contradiction, all the bitterness of enforced rebellion.

The attendance on Mass could hardly have seemed dangerous to Madame Dupin. The old curé of Ñohant was not troubled with an excess of reverence. When order ing a procession, in deference to the mandate of his Archbishop, he would seize the occasion for expressing his contempt for such mummeries. In his congregation there was a queer old lady, who used to utter her disapproval of the ceremony with a frankness that would have seemed brutal even in a theatre, by exclaiming, "Quelle diable de Messe !" And the object of this criticism, on turning to the congregation to wind up with the familiar Dominus vobiscum, would reply in an under-tone, yet loudly enough for Aurore's ear, "Allez au diable !" That the child attached little solemnity to the ritual is evident from her account to the grandmother of her first visit to the Mass: "I saw the curé, who took his breakfast standing up before a big table, and who turned round on us now and then to call us names. 27

The preparation for the "First Communion" was a more serious matter. The girl had now to study the life of Christ, and her heart was touched by the story. "The Gospel" (she writes) "and the divine drama of the life and death of Jesus drew from me in secret torrents of tears. Her grandmother, by making now and again a short, dry appeal to her reason, succeeded in getting her to reject the notion of miracles and of the divinity of Jesus. But though she was thus unable to reach

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"full faith," she resolved en revanche to deny nothing internally. Accordingly she learned her catechism like a parrot, without seeking to understand it, and without thinking of making fun of its mysteries.' For the rest, she felt a special repugnance toward the confessional. She was able to recall a few small childish faults, such as telling a lie to her mother in order to screen the maid Rose, but feared the list would not satisfy the confessor. Happily, however, he proved to be more lenient than she had anticipated, and dismissed his young penitent with a nominal penance.

The day that makes an epoch in the Catholic girl's life at length arrived, and Aurore was decked out like the rest of the candidates. The grandmother, having given a finishing touch to her instructions by bidding Aurore, while going through the act of decorum with the utmost decency, "not to outrage Divine wisdom and human reason to such an extent as to believe that she was going to eat her Creator," accompanied her to the church. It was a hard ordeal. The incongruous appearance of the deistic grandmamma in the place sufficed in itself to throw the girl's thoughts into disorder. She felt the hollowness of the whole thing, and asked herself whether she and her grandmother were not committing an act of hypocrisy. More than once her repugnance reached such a pitch that she thought of getting up and saying to her grandmother, "Enough of this let us go away. : in another shape. Going over the scene of the "Last Supper" in her thoughts, she all at once recognized that the words of Jesus, "This is my body and my blood," were nothing but a metaphor. He was too holy and too great to have wished to deceive his disciples. This discovery of the symbolism of the rite calmed her by removing all feeling of its grotesqueness. She left the Communion table quite at peace. Her contentment gave a new expression to her face, which did not escape the anxious eyes of Madame Dupin: "Softened and terrified, divided between the fear of having made me devout and that of having caused me to lie to myself, she pressed me gently to her heart and dropped some tears on my veil."

But relief came

It was out of this conflicting and agitating experience, the full sense of the beauty of the Christian faith and the equally full

dwell in it. The dryads and the cherubim deserted it, and it seemed to me as if my ceremonies and my sacrifices were from this time only childishness, that I had not in truth been in earnest. I destroyed the temple with as much care as I had built it; I dug a hole at the foot of the tree, where I buried the garlands, the shells, and all the rustic ornaments, under the ruins of the altar.

This story of Aurore's religious experiment cannot fail to remind the reader of biography of the child Goethe's well-known essays in the same direction. The boy's mind, it will be remembered, had been greatly exercised with the religious problem, first of all under the impression of horror caused by the earthquake at Lisbon, and later from having to listen to accounts of the new sects-Separatists, Moravians, and the rest-who sought a closer communion with the Deity than was possible through the somewhat cold ritual of the established religion. Stirred by their example, he tried also to realize a closer approach to the Divine Being. He conceived Him, he tells us, as standing in immediate connection with Nature. So he invented a form of worship in which natural products were to represent the world, and a flame burning over these to symbolize the aspirations of man's heart. A handsome pyramid-shaped music-stand was chosen for altar, and on the shelves of this the successive stages in the evolution of Nature were to be indicated. The rite was to be carried out at sunrise, the altarflame to be secured by means of fumigating pastils and a burning-glass. The first performance was a success, but in trying to repeat it the boy-priest omitted to put the pastils into a cup, so the lacquered stand, with its beautiful gold flowers, was disastrously burnt, and the spirit for new offerings departed.

In comparing these two instances of childish worship, one is struck perhaps more by their contrast than by their sinilarity. Each of the two incidents illustrates, no doubt, a true childish aspiration toward the great Unseen, and also an impulse to invent a form of worship which shall harmonize with and express the little worshipper's own individual thoughts. But here the resemblance ceases. The boy-priest feels, apparently, nothing of the human side of religion he is the true precursor of Goethe, the large-eyed man of science and the poet of pantheism, and finds his delight in symbolizing the orderliness of

Nature's work as a whole, and its Divine purpose and control. Aurore Dupin, on the other hand, approaches religion on the human and emotional side, the side which seems more appropriate to her sex. She thinks of her deity as intently occupied with humanity and its humble kinsfolk in the sentient world; and she endows him above all other qualities with generosity and pitifulness, even to excess. Goethe seems to represent the speculative, Aurore the humanitarian, impulse in religion.

But we must return from our digression and follow Aurore through her later religious experiences.

Madame Dupin was dissatisfied with the girl's progress, and said to her, "Vous n'avez point de tenue, point de grâce, point d'à-propos." She resolved to send her to a convent, and selected for this purpose the "Couvent des Anglaises, "which had been founded by English Catholic refugees during the Protectorate, and where she had been imprisoned during the Revolution.

Aurore had but little regret in leaving the open world and varied interests of Nohant. She was weary of being an apple of discord between her mother and her grandmother, both of whom she loved, and felt an "imperious need" of repose. Three years were passed behind the grating-years of almost complete isolation from the outer world. In the first of these she was a rebel, enfant terrible in the second she passed suddenly to an ardent and agitated devotion ;" in the third she quieted down to a calm and enjoyable piety.

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We must not dwell on the first year, with its succession of wild girlish adventures, strange and exciting though they are, beyond most narratives of boyish school pranks. Suffice it to say that Aurore at once joined and took the lead of 'les diables," that is, the rebels who refused to be among the devout ones ("les sages"). She headed their exciting and dangerous excursions through the labyrinthine subterranean passages, and even over the roof of the convent, in search of the victim,' "the fabulous person whom the tradition of the rebels declared was hidden away in some remote cell. This romantic excitement was, she tells us, necessary to her to enable her to bear up under the severe régime of the convent. It is not improbable, too, that this indulgence

in lawless turbulence came as a welcome reaction after the enforced duplicities and the heart-rendings of Nohant. However this be, the experience was an integral factor in the evolution of the girl's religious consciousness. The young are for. the most part only half-hearted rebels, and seem often to gratify their wildness only to enjoy more intensely the delights of submission. So it was in this case. Among the nuns with whom the girl was brought into close contact, and of whom she has left us masterly sketches, were women who tempered religious austerity with more lovable qualities. One of these, Madame Alicia, seems to have had a special attraction for Aurore. She writes of her

She scolded sometimes, but with few words; and these words were so just, a reproof so well grounded, reproaches so direct, so clear, and nevertheless accompanied by a hope so encouraging, that one felt one's self curbed, reduced, convinced before her, without being wounded, humiliated, or chagrined. . . . One loved her all the more, the less worthy one felt of the friendship she preserved for you, but one retained the hope of deserving it.

The complete withdrawal from the world and the sceptical atmosphere of the château, the daily contact with sincere devotion in women of worthy and even noble character, could not fail to act upon the heart of the young rebel, which, like that of Marian Evans and other gifted children, was preternaturally sensitive to human influence. A year of revolt was enough: she was now fifteen years old, and began to weary of its idleness and its barren excitements. She felt that her violent love for her mother had fatigued and bruised her. She had a quiet veneration for Madame Alicia, but she needed an ardent passion" to take her completely out of herself. So she found herself half-involuntarily taking a step in the direction of the devout, and occupying her spare hours with the Lives of the Saints. She ridiculed the miracles, but was touched and stirred by the faith, courage, and stoicism

of the confessors.

In the convent chapel at the end of the choir was a picture by Titian, representing Jesus in the Garden of Olives falling fainting into the arms of an angel. There was a particular moment of the day during the winter months when the declining sun threw a ray on the red drapery of the angel and on the white arm of Christ. At this moment she always experienced an inNEW SERIES.-VOL. LI., No. 6.

definable emotion, even in the days of her diablerie. Another painting in the chapel, depicting St. Augustine under the fig tree, bearing the words" Tolle, lege !" acted at this time on her imagination, and sent her to re-peruse the Gospels with greater

care.

The evening of the same day in which she had reopened the New Testament sle found herself at nightfall pacing the cloisters alone, weary of the frivolities of her comrades. She saw a few straggling worshippers, pupils and others, enter the church. Permission was required for joining in this evening devotion, but Aurore, always ready for an act of disobedience, heeded not the restriction and entered with the rest. Her impulse was half a malicious one, for she wanted to see what a poor hunchback would do there, and report to the “ diables, " and half a prompting of the nascent religious feeling.

Once in the church, the hunchback was soon forgotten. The scene was an impressive one :

The church was lit only by the small silver lamp, whose white flame repeated itself in the polished marble of the pavement as a star in a motionless water. Its reflection gave off pale sparks on the corners of the gilded frames, on

the carven candlesticks of the altar, and on the gold plates of the tabernacle. The door placed at the end of the hinder choir was open on account of the heat, as well as one of the great windows which looked on to the cemetery. The perfumes of the honeysuckle and jasmine ran on the wings of a fresh breeze. A star lost in the immensity was as if framed in by the window, and seemed to look on me attentively. The birds sang it was a quiet, a charm, a meditation, a mystery, of which I had never had an idea.

She remained some time in a state of pure contemplation, pure contemplation, "thinking of nothing." Little by little the few worshippers retired. A single nun remained kneeling at the back of the choir. Having completed her devotion, she arose and stepped forward, lighting a small candle at the lamp of the sanctuary in order to read. The mysterious form, wrapt in a long cloak, resembled a phantom ready to pierce the sepulchral slabs and re-enter ber marble couch." She too departed, and the girl was left alone :