gthening the conquests it had made; the Reformers were as ardent
as in the first days, but their ardor was more enlightened and more
measured. Proselytism was still carried on with zeal, and new converts
were made every day. In listening to the morality and to the dogmas
which Lutheranism had taken from Catholicism, Samuel was filled with
admiration. His bold and sincere spirit instantly compared the doctrines
which were now submitted to him, with those in the belief of which
he had been bred; and, enlightened by the comparison, was not slow
to acknowledge the inferiority of Judaism. He said to himself, that
a religion made for a single people, to the exclusion of all
others,--which only offered a barbarous justice for rule of
conduct,--which neither rendered the present intelligible nor
satisfactory, and left the future uncertain,--could not be that of noble
souls and lofty intellects; and that he could not be the God of truth
who had dictated, in the midst of thunder, his vacillating will, and had
called to the performance of his narrow wishes the slaves of a vulgar
terror. Always conversant with himself, Samuel, who had spoken what he
thought, now performed what he had spoken; and, a year after his arrival
in Germany, solemnly abjured Judaism, and entered into the bosom of the
Reformed Church. As he did not wish to do things by halves, and desired
as much as was in him to put off the old man and lead a new life, he
changed his name of Samuel to that of Peter. Some time passed, during
which he strengthened and instructed himself in his new religion. Very
soon he arrived at the point of searching for objections to refute, and
adversaries to overthrow. Bold and enterprising, he went at once to the
strongest, and Bossuet was the first Catholic author that he set himself
to read. He commenced with a kind of disdain; believing that the faith
which he had just embraced contained the pure truth. He despised all
the attacks which could be made against it, and laughed already at the
irresistible arguments which he was to find in the works of the Eagle of
Meaux. But his mistrust and irony soon gave place to wonder first,
and then to admiration: he thought that the cause pleaded by such an
advocate must, at least, be respectable; and, by a natural transition,
came to think that great geniuses would only devote themselves to that
which was great. He then studied Catholicism with the same ardor and
impartiality which he had bestowed