he free-will of man, but they
have not destroyed the power of Satan. Man continues to sin and to
die; the Devil keeps possession of the field of battle; and it is for
a very small number of the elect that the Deity consented to die.

You do indeed smile, Madam, at my being obliged seriously to combat
such chimeras. If they have something of the marvellous in them, it is
quite adapted to the heads of children, not of men, and ought not to
be admitted by reasonable beings. All the notions we can form of those
things must be mysterious; yet there is no subject more demonstrable,
according to those whose interest it is to have it believed, though
they are as incapable as ourselves to comprehend the matter. For the
priests to say that they believe such absurdities, is to be guilty of
manifest falsehood; because a proposition to be believed must
necessarily be understood. To believe what they do not comprehend is
to adhere sottishly to the absurdities of others; to believe things
which are not comprehended by those who gossip about them is the
height of folly; to believe blindly the mysteries of the Christian
religion is to admit contradictions of which they who declare them are
not convinced. In fine, is it necessary to abandon one's reason among
absurdities that have been received without examination from ancient
priests, who were either the dupes of more knowing men, or themselves
the impostors who fabricated the tales in question?

If you ask of me how men have not long ago been shocked by such absurd
and unintelligible reveries, I shall proceed, in my turn, to explain
to you this secret of the church, this mystery of our priests. It is
not necessary, in doing this, to pay any attention to those general
dispositions of man, especially when he is ignorant and incapable of
reasoning. All men are curious, inquisitive; their curiosity spurs
them on to inquiry, and their imagination busies itself to clothe with
mystery every thing the fancy conjures up as important to happiness.
The vulgar mistake even what they have the means of knowing, or, which
is the same thing, what they are least practised in they are dazzled
with; they proclaim it, accordingly, marvellous, prodigious,
extraordinary; it is a phenomenon. They neither admire nor respect
much what is always visible to their eyes; but whatever strikes their
imagination, whatever gives scope to the mind, becomes itself the
fruitful source of other ideas far more extravagant