practise them, a joyless
and melancholy disposition, which announces no contentment, nor that
interior peace of which they speak so incessantly, without ever
exhibiting any undoubted manifestations of it. Whoever is in the
enjoyment of peace within, shows some exterior marks of it; but the
internal satisfaction of devotees is commonly so concealed, that we
may well suspect it of being nothing but a mere chimera. Their
interior peace, which they allege gives them a good conscience, is
visible to others only by a bilious and petulant humor, that is not
usually much applauded by those who come under its influence. If,
however, there are occasionally some devotees who actually display the
serene countenance of satisfaction and enjoyment, it is because the
dismal ideas of religion are rendered inoperative by a happy
temperament; or that such persons have not fully become impregnated
with their system of faith, whose legitimate effect is to plunge its
devotees into terrible inquietudes and sombre chagrins.

Thus, Madam, we are brought back to the contradictory discourses of
those priests who, after having caused terror by their desolating
dogmas, attempt to reassure us by vague hopes, and exhort us to place
confidence in a God whom they have themselves so repulsively
delineated. It is idle for them to tell us the yoke of Jesus Christ is
light. It is insupportable to those who consider it properly. It is
only light for those who bear it without reflection, or for those who
assume it in order to impose it upon others, without intending to
suffer its annoyances themselves.

Suffer me, Madam, to refer you to yourself. Were you happy, contented,
or gay, when you made me the depository of the secret inquietudes
inflicted upon you by prejudices, and which had commenced taking that
fatal empire over your mind which I have endeavored to destroy? Was
not your soul involved in woe in spite of your judgment? Were you not
taking measures to wither all your happiness? In favor of religion,
were you not ready to renounce the world, and disregard all you owe to
society? If I was afflicted, I was not surprised. The Christian
religion inevitably destroys the happiness and repose of those who are
subjected by it; alarms and terrors are the objects of its pleasures;
it cannot make those happy who fully receive it. It would certainly
have plunged you into distress. All your faculties would have been
injured, and your too susceptible imaginatio