now armed with severity, and then full of clemency and
gentleness; now cruel and pitiless, and then easily reconciled by the
repentance and the tears of the sinners. Consequently, men face the
Deity in the manner which conforms the most to their present interests.
An always wrathful God would repel His worshipers, or cast them into
despair. Men need a God who becomes angry and who can be appeased; if
His anger alarms a few timid souls, His clemency reassures the
determined wicked ones who intend to have recourse sooner or later to
the means of reconciling themselves with Him; if the judgments of God
frighten a few faint-hearted devotees who already by temperament and by
habitude are not inclined to evil, the treasures of Divine mercy
reassure the greatest criminals, who have reason to hope that they will
participate in them with the others.

CLXVI.--THE FEAR OF GOD IS POWERLESS AGAINST HUMAN PASSIONS.

The majority of men rarely think of God, or, at least, do not occupy
themselves much with Him. The idea of God has so little stability, it is
so afflicting, that it can not hold the imagination for a long time,
except in some sad and melancholy visionists who do not constitute the
majority of the inhabitants of this world. The common man has no
conception of it; his weak brain becomes perplexed the moment he
attempts to think of Him. The business man thinks of nothing but his
affairs; the courtier of his intrigues; worldly men, women, youth, of
their pleasures; dissipation soon dispels the wearisome notions of
religion. The ambitious, the avaricious, and the debauchee sedulously
lay aside speculations too feeble to counterbalance their diverse
passions.

Whom does the idea of God overawe? A few weak men disappointed and
disgusted with this world; some persons whose passions are already
extinguished by age, by infirmities, or by reverses of fortune. Religion
is a restraint but for those whose temperament or circumstances have
already subjected them to reason. The fear of God does not prevent any
from committing sin but those who do not wish to sin very much, or who
are no longer in a condition to sin. To tell men that Divinity punishes
crime in this world, is to claim as a fact that which experience
contradicts constantly The most wicked men are usually the arbiters of
the world, and those whom fortune blesses with its favors. To convince
us of the judgments of God by sending us to the other life, is to make
us a