The true English formalist looks upon the Scotch and the Dissenters as more frequently exposed to the vice of hypocrisy than he is himself. He is so careful to keep anything resembling piety out of his ordinary language that it seems to him ill bred in a Scotchman to make pious reference to the Scriptures or the Sabbath Day. On the other hand, he unfeignedly disapproves of the continental Sunday, because forms are not so steadily observed on the Continent, and it seems to him as if the French and Germans did not know how to behave. [Sidenote: Formalism in France.] [Sidenote: French Gentlemen.] Now with regard to formalism in France I should say that in the upper classes, where it exists in the greatest force, it is even more a matter of ceremonial usage than in England. Has the reader ever observed French gentlemen in church? How many of them have any appearance, even, of taking part in the service! They are present for the most part as spectators of a “function” only--they support it by their presence, by their respectful deportment, and that is all. [Sidenote: French Marriages and Funerals.] French formalism has taken its last and most determined stand on marriages and funerals. Here it is strongly sustained by the general sentiment that a ceremony is needed on such important occasions, and the Church of Rome understands ceremony so well that she gives complete satisfaction to this instinctive need. Quite independently of special theological tenets, it is felt that marriage requires some kind of blessing or consecration, and that a solemn pomp should accompany the dead man to his grave. [Sidenote: Religious Interments of French Unbelievers.] I remember being in a room with a number of Frenchmen when the conversation turned upon funerals. “You will all of you,” I said, “be buried with the ceremonial of the Church of Rome, and there is not one of you who is really a Catholic or even a Christian, except in the sense that you believe Jesus to have been a good man. Why this clinging to ceremonies that have lost their meaning for you? Why not be buried with rites in accordance with your convictions?” An old lawyer made himself the spokesman of the party in reply. He said, “The disposal of our remains is almost invariably decided by the ladies of the family, who abominate civil interments. Besides this, many Frenchmen are neither convinced Catholics nor convinced unbelievers either, so they cling to established forms.” I then referred the question to a lady in connection with a recent Catholic interment of a sincere unbeliever, and she answered that the ceremony, being a matter of usage, really implied no affirmation whatever concerning the faith of the dead man, but was the only way of doing him a little honour, as none of those present would have dared to attend a civil burial.[40] [Sidenote: Philosophical Anglicanism.]