Expensiveness of the Catholic religion.

nation (40). The people that submit to it will labour only to maintain the ease and luxury of the priesthood; each of its inhabitants will be nothing more than a slave to the sacerdotal power.

In order to be good, therefore, a religion should be

What remedy is there for this abuse? There is but one; and that is to diminish the number of the priests. But there are religions (and the Roman Catholic is of this sort) whose worship requires a great number. In this case the worship should be changed, or at least the number of the sacraments diminished. The fewer priests there are, the fewer funds will be necessary for their maintenance. But these funds are sacred. Why? Is it because they are in part usurped from the poor? The clergy are only the depositaries. Therefore no taxes should be levied on these funds, but such as are absolutely necessary for government. I would observe further, that the temporal power being expressly appointed to watch over the temporal happiness of the people, it has a right to the administration of such legacies as are left to the poor, and to take into its own hands the management of all the funds of which the monks have defrauded them. But what use shall be made of them? Apply them to the actual support of the wretched; either by charities or diminution of taxes, or by the purchase of small possessions, which distributed among those whom poverty has deprived of their property, will, by making them proprietors, render them citizens *.

* These long notes will not perhaps, afford much entertainment to an Englishman. They should however afford him a sensible pleasure, when he reflects how much happier the inhabitants of this country now are, than their ancestors were a very few centuries past. T.

tolerant

Evils of intolerance.

tolerant and little expensive (41). Its clergy should have no authority over the people. A dread of the priest debases the mind and the soul: makes the one brutish and the other servile. Must the ministers of the altar be always armed with the sword? Can the barbarities committed by their intolerance ever be forgotten? The earth is yet drenched with the blood it has spilt! Civil toleration alone is not sufficient to secure the peace of nations: the ecclesiastic must concur in the same intention. Every dogma is the seed of discord and injustice that is sown among men. Which is the truly tolerant religion? That which like the pagan has no dogma, or which may be reduced, like that of the philosophers, to a sound and elevated morality; which will, doubtless be one day the religion of the universe.

It is requisite, moreover, that a religion be gentle and humane:

That its ceremonies contain nothing gloomy or

severe:

That it constantly present spectacles that are pompous, and festivals that are pleasing (42):

That its worship excite the passions, but such pas sions only as tend to the public utility; the religion that stifles them produces Talapoins, Bonzes, and Bramins; but never heroes, illustrious men, and noble citizens.

The religion that is joyful, supposes a noble confidence

Wrong ideas inculcated by ecclesiastics.

fidence in the goodness of the Supreme Being. Why would you have him resemble an Eastern tyrant? Why make him punish slight faults with eternal torment? Why thus put the name of the Divinity at the bottom of the portrait of the devil? Why oppress the soul with a load of fear, break its springs, and transform the worshipper of Jesus, into a vile pusillanimous slave? It is the malignant who paint a milignant God. What is their devotion? A veil for their crimes.

A religion departs from its political purpose, when the man who is just, humane toward his brethren, and distinguished for his talents and his virtues, is not assured of the favour of heaven: when a momentary desire, a burst of passion, or omission of a mass, can deprive him of it for ever.

Let not the rewards of heaven be made the price of trifling religious operations, which convey a diminutive idea of the Eternal, and false conceptions of virtue; its rewards should never be assigned to fasting, haircloth, a blind submission, and self-castigation.

The man who places these operations among the virtues, might as well include in the number leaping, dancing, and tumbling on the rope. What is it to the public whether a young fellow flog himself or take a perilous leap?

As the fever was formerly deified, why not deify the public good? Why has not this divinity his worship, his temple, and his priests; (43) and lastly, why make

Humility not to be considered a national virtue.

a virtue of self-denial? Humanity is in man the only virtue truly sublime : it is the principal, and perhaps the only one with which religion ought to inspire mankind, as it includes almost all others.

Let humility be held in veneration by a convent: it favours the meanness and idleness of a monastic life (44). But ought this humility to be the virtue of a people? No: A noble pride has ever been that of a renowned nation. It was the spirit of contempt, with which the Greeks and Romans regarded the slavish nations; it was a just and lofty opinion of their own courage and force, that, concurring with their laws, enabled them to subdue the universe*. Pride, it will be said, attaches a man to the earth: so much the better; pride is therefore useful. Let religion, far from oppo

*That the Romans owed much of their exaltation to this spirit is very certain, but it is not so certain that they made a right use of it, or at least did not carry it to an excess; for as Lord Bolingbroke observes, in his Letters on the Study of History, when speaking of the Roman nation, during the career of their conquests, when they had not yet learned the lesson of moderation : "An insatia❝ble thirst of military fame, an unconfined ambition of extending "their empire, an extravagant confidence in their own knowledge "and force, an insolent contempt of their enemies, and an impetu"ous, overbearing spirit, with which they pursued all their enter"prizes, composed at that time the distinguishing character of a "Roman; and their sages had not then learned, that virtues in "excess degenerate into vices." T.

Principles of the Pagan religion.

sing, encrease in man an attachment to things terrestrial; let every citizen be employed in promoting the prosperity, the glory and power of his country; and let religion be the panegyrist of every action that promotes the welfare of the majority, sanctify all useful establishments, and never destroy them. May the interest of the spiritual and temporal powers be for ever one and the same; may these two powers be reunited, as at Rome, in the hands of the magistrates (45) may the voice of heaven be henceforth that of the public good: and may the oracles of God confirm every law that is advantageous to the people!

CHAP. XV.

AMONG THE FALSE RELIGIONS, WHICH HAVE BEEN LEAST DETRIMENTAL TO THE HAPPINESS OF SOCIETY?

THE first I shall mention is that of the Pagans: but at the time of its institution, this pretended religion was nothing more than the allegorical system of nature. Saturn was Time, Ceres, Matter; and Jupiter the generating Spirit (46). All the fables of mythology were mere emblems of certain principles of nature. When we consider it as a religious system, was it so absurd to adore

VOL. I.

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