saw him. The Son of God, who
arose from the dead in secrecy, showed himself only to his adherents.
They alone pretend to have conversed with him; they alone have
furnished us with the particulars of his life and miracles; and yet by
such suspicious testimony they wish to convince us of the divinity of
his mission eighteen hundred years after the event, although he could
not convince his contemporaries, the Jews.

We are then told that many Jews have been converted to Jesus Christ;
that after his death many others were converted; that the witnesses
of the life and miracles of the Son of God have sealed their testimony
with their blood; that men will not die to attest falsehood; that by a
visible effect of the divine power, the people of a great part of the
earth have adopted Christianity, and still persist in the belief of
this divine religion.

In all this I perceive nothing like a miracle. I see nothing but what
is conformable to the ordinary progress of the human mind. An
enthusiast, a dexterous impostor, a crafty juggler, can easily find
adherents in a stupid, ignorant, and superstitious populace. These
followers, captivated by counsels, or seduced by promises, consent to
quit a painful and laborious life, to follow a man who gives them to
understand that he will make them _fishers of men_; that is to say, he
will enable them to subsist by his cunning tricks, at the expense of
the multitude who are always credulous. The juggler, with the
assistance of his remedies, can perform cures which seem miraculous to
ignorant spectators. These simple creatures immediately regard him as
a supernatural being. He adopts this opinion himself, and confirms the
high notions which his partisans have formed respecting him. He feels
himself interested in maintaining this opinion among his sectaries,
and finds out the secret of exciting their enthusiasm. To accomplish
this point, our empiric becomes a preacher; he makes use of riddles,
obscure sentences, and parables to the multitude, that always admire
what they do not understand. To render himself more agreeable to the
people, he declaims among poor, ignorant, foolish men, against the
rich, the great, the learned; but above all, against the _priests_,
who in all ages have been _avaricious_, _imperious_, _uncharitable_,
and _burdensome_ to the people. If these discourses be eagerly
received among the vulgar, who are always morose, envious, and
jealous, they displease all those who s