disposition
will become acrimonious, and that the vexatious ideas over which you
have so long brooded will sooner or later produce a disastrous
influence upon those who approach you. Does not experience constantly
show us that religion effects changes of this kind? What are called
_conversions_, what devotees regard as special acts of divine grace,
are very often only lamentable revolutions by which real vices and
odious qualities are substituted for amiable and useful
characteristics. By a deplorable consequence of these pretended
miracles of grace we frequently see sorrow succeed to enjoyment, a
gloomy and unhappy state to one of innocent gayety, lassitude and
chagrin to activity and hilarity, and slander, intolerance, and zeal
to indulgence and gentleness; nay, what do I say? cruelty itself to
humanity. In a word, superstition is a dangerous leaven, that is
fitted to corrupt even the most honest hearts.

Do you not see, in fact, the excesses to which fanaticism and zeal
drive the wisest and best meaning men? Princes, magistrates, and
judges become inhuman and pitiless as soon as there is a question of
the interests of religion. Men of the gentlest disposition, the most
indulgent, and the most equitable, upon every other matter, religion
transforms to ferocious beasts. The most feeling and compassionate
persons believe themselves in conscience obliged to harden their
hearts, to do violence to their better instincts, and to stifle
nature, in order to show themselves cruel to those who are denounced
as enemies to their own manner of thinking. Recall to your mind,
Madam, the cruelties of nations and governments in alternate
persecutions of Catholics or Protestants, as either happened to be in
the ascendant. Can you find reason, equity, or humanity in the
vexations, imprisonments, and exiles that in our days are inflicted
upon the Jansenists? And these last, if ever they should attain in
their turn the power requisite for persecution, would not probably
treat their adversaries with more moderation or justice. Do you not
daily see individuals who pique themselves upon their sensibility
unblushingly express the joy they would feel at the extermination of
persons to whom they believe they owe neither benevolence nor
indulgence, and whose only crime is a disdain for prejudices that the
vulgar regard as sacred, or that an erroneous and false policy
considers useful to the state? Superstition has so greatly stifled all
sense