Calvinism did not take root in France, and never will, because it is not amiable. Romanism will never flourish in England again, because it says: "Believe, without seeking to understand."
The Roman Catholic religion aims at gaining a hold over the heart, the Protestant religion aims at gaining a hold over the mind. The first attracts women by its poetry and mysticism and governs through them; the second attracts men by sometimes offering them food for their intellectual appetites.
Finally, the first is under the control of a foreign power, the second is national.
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We French people worship a tender, merciful, almost familiar, God, whom we are wont to call sweet Savior.
The English worship the God of the Jews, that God Who commanded His chosen people to exterminate their enemies, and spare neither man, woman, or child, and Whom they call awful God.
The manner in which we speak of the Divinity shocks the English; the manner in which the English worship Him leaves us cold and indifferent.
To the Frenchmen who say that religion is incompatible with liberty, I would simply reply: England and America are the freest nations in the world, and at the same time the most religious—I mean the most church-going.
To the English who say that there is no religion in France, I would reply: Our churches are not, like yours, full only from eleven to half-past twelve; they are thronged from six o'clock in the morning to one in the afternoon by a crowd whose fervor is second to that of no other church-goers, and this French piety is all the more admirable because, in our country, religion is not an indispensable garment, as it is in England.
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