It was heart-breaking to
gaze on the sickly appearance of the vines already attacked by the
_oidium_, and to hear the harrowing accounts of the misery caused by an
enemy more redoubtable still. Arbois, though so charming to look at, is
far from being a little Eden. It is eminently a Catholic place; atheism
and immorality abound; bigotry among the women, scepticism among the
men, a looseness in domestic morality among all classes characterize the
population, whilst we need no information on the subject of dissipation
generally. The numbers of _cafes_ and _cabarets_ speak volumes. There
is, of course, in this townling, of not six thousand souls, a theatre,
which is greatly resorted to. One old church has been turned into a
theatre at Arbois, and another into the Halles, a third into the
Hotel-de-Ville, a desecration we Protestants can but behold with
aversion. Protestantism is a young and tender plant as yet in Arbois,
the church and school, or so called _culte_, dating from ten years back
only. The congregation consists of about fifty persons, all belonging to
the poorer classes, and the position of a pastor there must be a sad
one. He is constantly importuned for help, which, out of his slender
income, he can ill afford to bestow, and he is surrounded by spies,
detractors, and adversaries on every side.
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