se
of most disservice to the clergy. To question the faith and reject the
authority of the priesthood, have always been the most frightful
crimes; they are truly the sin against the Holy Ghost, which can never
be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come. To
despise these objects which the priests have an interest in making to
be respected, is sufficient to qualify one for the appellation of a
blasphemer and an impious man. These vague words, void of sense,
suffice to excite horror in the mind of the weak vulgar. The terrible
word sacrilege designates an attempt on the person, the goods, and the
rights of the clergy. The omission of some useless practice is
exaggerated and represented as a crime more detestable than actions
which injure society. In favor of fidelity to fulfil the duties of
religion, the priest easily pardons his slave submitting to vices,
criminal debaucheries, and excesses the most horrible. You perceive,
then, Madam, that the Christian morality has really in view but the
utility of the priests. Why, then, should you be surprised that they
endeavor to make themselves arbitrary and sovereign; that they deem as
faults, and as criminal, all the virtues which agree not with their
marvellous systems? The Christian morality appears only to have been
proposed to blind men, to disturb their reason, to render them abject
and timid, to plunge them into vassalage, to make them lose sight of
the earth which they inhabit, for visions of bliss in heaven. By the
aid of this morality, the priests have become the true masters here
below; they have imagined virtues and practices useful only to
themselves; they have proscribed and interdicted those which were
truly useful to society; they have made slaves of their disciples, who
make virtue to consist in blind submission to their caprices.

To lay the foundations of a good morality, it is absolutely necessary
to destroy the prejudices which the priests have inspired in us; it is
necessary to begin by rendering the mind of man energetic, and freeing
it from those vain terrors which have enthralled it; it is necessary
to renounce those supernatural notions which have, till now, hindered
men from consulting the volume of nature, which have subjected reason
to the yoke of authority; it is necessary to encourage man, to
undeceive him as to those prejudices which have enslaved him; to
annihilate in his bosom those false theories which corrupt his nature,
and w