l grace. It is also true, that to establish firmly the empire of
religion over them, it would be necessary that they should see it
practised in all its purity by those who profess it. They are extremely
susceptible of the scandal given by bad Christians, as are all those who
are, for the first time, instructed in the principles of the
Gospel-morality.

You will perhaps ask me, Madam, if they have a religion? To this I
answer, that it cannot be said they have not one, though it is difficult
to give a definition of what it is. I shall sometime or other, take
occasion to enter into more particulars on this head. This letter, like
most of the others that have preceded it, prove sufficiently that I do
not pretend to write to you methodically.

I shall then now only content myself with adding, by way of finishing,
to this picture of the savages, that even in their most indifferent
actions, may be perceived the traces of the primitive natural religion,
but which escape those who do not study them enough, because they are
yet more defaced by the want of instruction, [This want of instruction
is wretchedly supplemented amongst the savage-converts to the Popish
religion, by that superstitious worship, and those fabulous traditions,
its missionaries have introduced amongst them, and which must be only
the more execrable, for their being a superstructure on so fair a
foundation as that of the truths of the Gospel. At least, the savages,
in their genuine unsophisticated state, have no such base, absurd,
derogatory ideas of the Deity, as are implied by the doctrines of
transubstantiation, purgatory, absolution, and the like fictions in the
Romish church, which have been the more than mines of Mexico and Peru,
of its clergy.] than adulterated by the mixture of a superstitious
worship, and by fabulous traditions.

_FINIS._

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Account Of The Customs And Manners
Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton, by Antoine Simon Maillard

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MICMAKIS AND MARICHEETS ***

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