cts that
are respected and that are feared during life.

We need only open our eyes to see the unworthy means employed by
_sacerdotal policy_ to stifle the dawning reason of men. During their
infancy they are taught tales which are ridiculous, impertinent,
contradictory, and criminal, and to these they are enjoined to pay
respect. They are gradually impregnated with inconceivable mysteries
that are announced as sacred truths, and they are accustomed to
contemplate phantoms before which they habitually tremble. In a word,
measures are taken which are the best calculated to render those
blind who do not consult their reason, and to render those base who
constantly shudder whenever they recall the ideas with which their
priests infected their minds at an age when they were unable to guard
against such snares.

Recall to mind, Madam, the dangerous cares which were taken in the
convent where you were educated, to sow in your mind the germs of
those inquietudes that now afflict you. It was there that they began
to speak to you of fables, prodigies, mysteries, and doctrines that
you actually revere, while, if these things were announced to-day for
the first time, you would regard them as ridiculous, and as entirely
unworthy of attention. I have often witnessed your laughter at the
simplicity with which you formerly credited those tales of sorcerers
and ghosts, that, during your childhood, were related by the nuns who
had charge of your education. When you entered society where for a
long time such chimeras have been disbelieved, you were insensibly
undeceived, and at present you blush at your former credulity. Why
have you not the courage to laugh, in a similar manner, at an infinity
of other chimeras with no better foundation, which torment you even
yet, and which only appear more respectable, because you have not
dared to examine them with your own eyes, or because you see them
respected by a public who have never explored them? If my Eugenia is
enlightened and reasonable upon all other topics, why does she
renounce her understanding and her judgment whenever religion is in
question? In the mean time, at this redoubtable word her soul is
disturbed, her strength abandons her, her ordinary penetration is at
fault, her imagination wanders, she only sees through a cloud, she is
unquiet and afflicted. On the watch against reason, she dares not call
that to her assistance. She persuades herself that the best course for
her to t