s, and trifling ceremonies; why should
we not excite in them a salutary emulation, which may incline them to seek
the means, not of being _dead_ to the world, but of being _useful_ to it?
Instead of filling the youthful minds of their pupils with fables, sterile
dogmas, and puerilities, why are not priests obliged, or invited to teach
them truths, and to render them useful citizens of their country? Under
the present system, men are only useful to the clergy who blind them, and
to the tyrants who fleece them.

192.

The partisans of credulity often accuse unbelievers of insincerity,
because they sometimes waver in their principles, alter their minds in
sickness, and retract at death. When the body is disordered, the faculty
of reasoning is commonly disordered with it. At the approach of death,
man, weak and decayed, is sometimes himself sensible that Reason abandons
him, and that Prejudice returns. There are some diseases, which tend to
weaken the brain; to create despondency and pusillanimity; and there are
others, which destroy the body, but do not disturb the reason. At any
rate, an unbeliever who recants in sickness is not more extraordinary,
than a devotee who neglects in health the duties which his religion
explicitly enjoins.

Ministers of Religion openly contradict in their daily conduct the
rigorous principles, they teach to others; in consequence of which,
unbelievers, in their turn, may justly accuse them of insincerity. Is it
easy to find many prelates humble, generous, void of ambition, enemies
of pomp and grandeur, and friends of poverty? In short, is the conduct of
Christian ministers conformable to the austere morality of Christ, their
God, and their model?

193.

_Atheism_, it is said, _breaks all the ties of society. Without the belief
of a God, what will become of the sacredness of oaths? How shall we oblige
a man to speak the truth, who cannot seriously call the Deity to witness
what he says?_ But, does an oath strengthen our obligation to fulfil the
engagements contracted? Will he, who is not fearful of lying, be less
fearful of perjury? He, who is base enough to break his word, or unjust
enough to violate his engagements, in contempt of the esteem of men, will
not be more faithful therein for having called all the gods to witness his
oaths. Those, who disregard the judgments of men, will soon disregard the
judgments of God. Are not princes, of all men, the most ready to swear,
and