ame time such
imperfections and vices that the most despicable of men would blush to
resemble him.

Behold, Madam, the God whom this religion orders you to adore _in
spirit and in truth_. I reserve for another letter an analysis of the
holy books which you are taught to respect as the oracles of heaven. I
now perceive for the first time that I have perhaps made too long a
dissertation; and I doubt not you have already perceived that a system
built on a basis possessing so little solidity as that of the God whom
his devotees raise with one hand and destroy with the other, can have
no stability attached to it, and can only be regarded as a long tissue
of errors and contradictions.

I am, &c.

LETTER III.

An Examination of the Holy Scriptures, of the Nature of the
Christian Religion, and of the Proofs upon which Christianity is
founded.

You have seen, Madam, in my preceding letter, the incompatible and
contradictory ideas which this religion gives us of the Deity. You
will have seen that the revelation which is announced to us, instead
of being the offspring of his goodness and tenderness for the human
race, is really only a proof of injustice and partiality, of which a
God who is equally just and good would be entirely incapable. Let us
now examine whether the ideas suggested to us by these books,
containing the divine oracles, are more rational, more consistent, or
more conformable to the divine perfections. Let us see whether the
statements related in the Bible, whether the commands prescribed to us
in the name of God himself, are really worthy of God, and display to
us the characters of infinite wisdom, goodness, power, and justice.

These inspired books go back to the origin of the world. Moses, the
confidant, the interpreter, the historian of the Deity, makes us (if
we may use such an expression) witnesses of the formation of the
universe. He tells us that the Eternal, tired of his inaction, one
fine day took it into his head to create a world that was necessary to
his glory. To effect this, he forms matter out of nothing; a pure
spirit produces a substance which has no affinity to himself; although
this God fills all space with his immensity, yet still he found room
enough in it to admit the universe, as well as all the material bodies
contained therein.

These, at least, are the ideas which divines wish us to form
respecting the creation, if