es, notwithstanding he would never
allow them to approach his person? Would you not accuse such a father
of caprice, cruelty, folly, and a want of reason, if he visited with
his anger the children whom he had himself excluded from his presence?
Would you not impute to him an injustice of which none but the most
brutal of our species could be guilty if he actually punished them for
not having executed orders which he was never pleased to give them?

Conclude, then, with me, Madam, that the revelation of a religion to
only a single tribe or nation sets forth a God neither good,
impartial, nor equitable, but an unjust and capricious tyrant, who,
though he may show kindness and preference to some of his creatures,
at any rate acts with the greatest cruelty towards all the others.
This admitted, revelation does not prove the goodness, but the caprice
and partiality of the God that religion represents to us as full of
sagacity, benevolence, and equity, and that it describes as the common
father of all the inhabitants of the earth. If the interest and
self-love of those whom he favors makes them admire the profound views
of a God because he has loaded them with benefits to the prejudice of
their brethren, he must appear very unjust, on the other hand, to all
those who are the victims of his partiality. A hateful pride alone
could induce a few persons to believe that they were, to the exclusion
of all others, the cherished children of Providence. Blinded by their
vanity, they do not perceive that it is to give the lie to universal
and infinite goodness to suppose that God was capable of favoring with
his preference some men or nations, to the exclusion of others. All
ought to be equal in his eyes if it is true they are all equally the
work of his hands.

It is, nevertheless, upon partial revelations that are founded all the
religions of the world. In the same manner that every individual
believes himself the most important being in the universe, every
nation entertains the idea that it ought to enjoy the peculiar
tenderness of the Sovereign of nature, to the exclusion of all the
others. If the inhabitants of Hindostan imagine that it was for them
alone that Brama spoke, the Jews and the Christians have persuaded
themselves that it was only for them that the world was created, and
that it is solely for them that God was revealed.

But let us suppose for a moment that God has really made himself
known. How could a pure spirit