already irritated against each other,
have unsettled empires, caused revolutions, ruined sovereigns,
devastated the whole of Europe; these despicable quarrels could not be
extinguished even in rivers of blood. After the extinction of Paganism
the people established a religious principle of going into a frenzy,
every time that an opinion was brought forth which their priests
considered contrary to the holy doctrine. The votaries of a religion
which preaches externally but charity, harmony, and peace, have shown
themselves more ferocious than cannibals or savages every time that
their instructors have excited them to the destruction of their
brethren. There is no crime which men have not committed in the idea of
pleasing the Deity or of appeasing His wrath. The idea of a terrible God
who was represented as a despot, must necessarily have rendered His
subjects wicked. Fear makes but slaves, and slaves are cowardly, low,
cruel, and think they have a right to do anything when it is the
question of gaining the good-will or of escaping the punishments of the
master whom they fear. Liberty of thought can alone give to men humanity
and grandeur of soul. The notion of a tyrant God can create but abject,
angry, quarrelsome, intolerant slaves. Every religion which supposes a
God easily irritated, jealous, vindictive, punctilious about His rights
or His title, a God small enough to be offended at opinions which we
have of Him, a God unjust enough to exact uniform ideas in regard to
Him, such a religion becomes necessarily turbulent, unsocial,
sanguinary; the worshipers of such a God never believe they can, without
crime, dispense with hating and even destroying all those whom they
designate as adversaries of this God; they would believe themselves
traitors to the cause of their celestial Monarch, if they should live on
good terms with rebellious fellow-citizens. To love what God hates,
would it not be exposing one's self to His implacable hatred? Infamous
persecutors, and you, religious cannibals! will you never feel the folly
and injustice of your intolerant disposition? Do you not see that man is
no more the master of his religious opinions, of his credulity or
incredulity, than of the language which he learns in childhood, and
which he can not change? To tell men to think as you do, is it not
asking a foreigner to express his thoughts in your language? To punish a
man for his erroneous opinions, is it not punishing him for having b