an inexhaustible source of inquietudes and alarms, and
which will deprive you, sooner or later, of those rare qualities which
render you so dear to society. Your interest exacts that you should
render peace to your mind. It is your duty carefully to preserve that
sweetness of temper, that indulgence, and that cheerfulness, by which
you are so much endeared to all those who approach you. You owe
happiness to yourself, and you owe it to those who surround you. Do
not, then, abandon yourself to superstitious reveries, but collect all
the strength of your judgment to combat the chimeras which torment
your imagination. They will disappear as soon as you have considered
them with your ordinary sagacity.

Do not tell me, Madam, that your understanding is too weak to sound
the depths of theology. Do not tell me, in the language of our
priests, that the truths of religion are mysteries that we must adopt
without comprehending them, and that it is necessary to adore in
silence. By expressing themselves in this manner, do you not see they
really proscribe and condemn the very religion to which they are so
solicitous you should adhere? Whatever is supernatural is unsuited to
man, and whatever is beyond his comprehension ought not to occupy his
attention. To adore what we are not able to know, is to adore nothing.
To believe in what we cannot conceive, is to believe in nothing. To
admit without examination every thing we are directed to admit, is to
be basely and stupidly credulous. To say that religion is above
reason, is to recognize the fact that it was not made for reasonable
beings; it is to avow that those who teach it have no more ability to
fathom its depths than ourselves; it is to confess that our reverend
doctors do not themselves understand the marvels with which they daily
entertain us.

If the truths of religion were, as they assure us, necessary to all
men, they would be clear and intelligible to all men. If the dogmas
which this religion teaches were as important as it is asserted, they
would not only be within the comprehension of the doctors who preach
them, but of all those who hear their lessons. Is it not strange that
the very persons whose profession it is to furnish themselves with
religions knowledge, in order to impart it to others, should recognize
their own dogmas as beyond their own understanding, and that they
should obstinately inculcate to the people what they acknowledge they
do not comprehend them