ridiculous and extravagant, or he would repulse him as an
infidel and blasphemer, because his instructions lead him thus to
designate every man who fails to pursue the same routine as himself,
or who does not attach the same ideas as the devotee to things which
the latter has never examined.

What horror does it not fill the Christian devotee with if you tell
him that his priest is unnecessary! What would be his surprise if you
were to prove to him, even on the principles of his religion, that the
prayers which in his infancy he had been taught to consider as the
most agreeable to his God, are unworthy and unnecessary to this Deity!
For if God knows all, what need is there to remind him of the wants of
his creatures whom he loves? If God is a father full of tenderness and
goodness, is it necessary to ask him to "give us day by day our daily
bread"? If this God, so good, foresaw the wants of his children, and
knew much better than they what they could not know of themselves,
whence is it he bids them importune him to grant them their requests?
If this God is immutable and wise, how can his creatures change the
fixed resolution of the Deity? If this God is just and good, how can
he injure us, or place us in a situation to require the use of that
prayer which entreats the Deity _not to lead us into temptation_?

You see by this, Madam, that there is but a very small portion of what
the Christians pretend they understand and consider absolutely
necessary that accords at all with what they tell us has been dictated
by God himself. You see that the Lord's prayer itself contains many
absurdities and ideas totally contrary to those which every Christian
ought to have of his God. If you ask a Christian why he repeats
without ceasing this vain formula, on which he never reflects, he can
assign little other reason than that he was taught in his infancy to
clasp his hands, repeat words the meaning of which his priest, not
himself, is alone bound to understand. He may probably add that he has
ever been taught to consider this formula requisite, as it was the
most sacred and the most proper to merit the favor of Heaven.

We should, without doubt, form the same judgment of that multitude of
prayers which our teachers recommend to us daily. And if we believe
them, man, to please God, ought to pass a large portion of his
existence in supplicating Heaven to pour down its blessings on him.
But if God is good, if he cherishes his creatu