Their Duties.

The “Encyclop?dia” has been much exclaimed against in France; because it was produced in France, and has done France honor. In other countries, people have not cried out; on the contrary, they have eagerly set about pirating or spoiling it, because money was to be gained thereby.

But we, who do not, like the encyclop?dists of Paris, labor for glory; we, who are not, like them, exposed to envy; we, whose little society lies unnoticed in Hesse, in Würtemberg, in Switzerland, among the Grisons, or at Mount Krapak; and have, therefore, no apprehension of having to dispute with the doctor of the Comédie Italienne, or with a doctor of the Sorbonne; we, who sell not our sheets to a bookseller, but are free beings, and lay not black on white until we have examined, to the utmost of our ability, whether the said black may be of service to mankind; we, in short, who love virtue, shall boldly declare what we think.

“Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long —” I would venture to say, “Honor thy father and thy mother, though this day shall be thy last.”

Tenderly love and joyfully serve the mother who bore you in her womb, fed you at her breast, and patiently endured all that was disgusting in your infancy. Discharge the same duties to your father, who brought you up.

What will future ages say of a Frank, named Louis the Thirteenth, who, at the age of sixteen, began the exercise of his authority with having the door of his mother’s apartment walled up, and sending her into exile, without giving the smallest reason for so doing, and solely because it was his favorite’s wish?

“But, sir, I must tell you in confidence that my father is a drunkard, who begot me one day by chance, not caring a jot about me; and gave me no education but that of beating me every day when he came home intoxicated. My mother was a coquette, whose only occupation was love-making. But for my nurse, who had taken a liking to me, and who, after the death of her son, received me into her house for charity, I should have died of want.”

“Well, then, honor your nurse; and bow to your father and mother when you meet them. It is said in the Vulgate, ‘Honora patrem tuum et matrem tuam’ — not dilige.”

“Very well, sir, I shall love my father and my mother if they do me good; I shall honor them if they do me ill. I have thought so ever since ............