THE NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT IN FRANCE. [TO THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your last number you speak of a " quasi-religious movement in France," of which the organ is a newspaper, the .7:liformateur, and treat it as a mere combination of sceptical Roman Catholics and sceptical Protestants. Considering the account lately given by Mrs. Butler in the Contemporary of this movement, so entire a misrepresentation of the facts was not to be expected, if anywhere, in the Spectator. You have described the present movement precisely as that which it is not.
M. LAon Vilatte, the editor of the Bgformateur, is a French Protestant pasteur, belonging to the Free Church, and who has never been connected with the sceptical side of French Pro- testantism. I heard him many years ago, when he was quite a
young man, and although his view of the Church, as founded on " individual profession," is exactly the reverse of my own, I have scarcely ever heard a more earnest nor yet a more eloquent preacher. As respects M. Bouchard, his chief coadjutor, and the simple earnestness of his faith, I can only refer you to Mrs. Butler's article.
There may be, and no doubt there is, around a core of genuine faith a great deal of what you may call " Oppor- tunism." There is just now " Protestantism in the air of France," as a working-man is reported lately to have said. But the very peculiarity of what is now taking place is that it repre- sents essentially the alliance not of the sceptics on both sides, but of the earnest,—or to speak more precisely, of men too earnest to remain sceptics, with Protestants too earnest to remain shut up in their Protestantism.—I am, Sir, &c., J. M. LUDLOW.
[Mr. Ludlow mistakes the culprit. The Times gave the account of which he complains, and we named the authority.— ED. Spectator.]
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