'"
[Footnote 18: Right Rev. Samuel Gobat.]
MR. BARRAUD. "They seem early accustomed to habits of industry; but
in other respects, the training of the children is not very rigid:
almost the only crime they punish them for, is stealing. Mr.
Stanley's author, Bishop Gobat, says, he saw a mother, usually of a
very meek temper, and who would not see a man cause suffering to the
smallest reptile, burn the skin off both the hands and lips of her
daughter, only nine years of age, for having dipped her finger into
a jar of honey!"
EMMA. "Oh! how extremely cruel! they surely are not Christians."
GRANDY. "They are--and differ very little from the Roman Catholics
of more civilized countries. Some of the points of variation in
their doctrine are as follow:--They believe in no separate
purgatory; but that almost all men go to hell at their death, and
that from time to time, the Archangel Michael descends into that
place of torment, in order to deliver men's souls, and to introduce
them to paradise, sometimes for the sake of the prayers and
meritorious works of their relatives and their priests. They have a
great number of tales in support of this doctrine; the one they most
frequently make use of, is the story of a man who had done nothing
but evil when on earth, except that he had always observed the
_fast_ on Wednesday and Friday. When he died, he descended into
hell, to a dark place; but had always two lights surrounding him, by
the assistance of which he could go to the gate which separated hell
from paradise.
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