THE FRENCH HATRED OF PROTESTANTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The article on this subject in the Spectator of April 8th is extremely interesting, but I venture to think the writer has overlooked a point of similarity between the Frr.4-1 and the English character which would have enabled him to explain even more satisfactorily the cause of the French hatred of Protestants. The mental attitude of the average Frenchman for the French Protestant is the same as that of the average Englishman for the Nonconformist. As a rule, it will.be found that both Churchmen and agnostics entertain a feeling of dis- like and contempt for the Nonconformist, and although this feeling may not manifest itself with so much violence as the kindred feeling of the French for the Protestant, that is because our temperament is more phlegmatic, and less prone to rush to extremes than that of our Gallic neighbours. Would it not be well if we remembered a certain lesson about a mote and a beam I—I am, Sir, &c., A NoNocuiPowsT.
[We cannot presume to answer for the agnostics; but we do not believe that either they or English Churchmen as a rule entertain for Nonconformists anything like the-feeling prevalent in France towards the Huguenots. 'Let-our corre- spondent recall the general feeling expressed at the deaths of Mr. Spurgeon and -Dr. Dale, and now entertained in regard to, say, Dr. Martineau and Dr. Fairbairn.—ED.-Spectator'.}
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