n heaven; in persuading them, that
all their misfortunes are effects of divine anger; in providing none but
ineffectual and futile means to put an end to their sufferings, we might
justly conclude, that the only object of priests was to divert nations
from thinking about the true sources of their misery, and thus to render
it eternal. The ministers of religion conduct themselves almost like those
indigent mothers, who, for want of bread, sing their starved children to
sleep, or give them playthings to divert their thoughts from afflicting
hunger.

Blinded by error from their very infancy, restrained by the invisible
bonds of opinion, overcome by panic terrors, their faculties blunted
by ignorance, how should the people know the true causes of their
wretchedness? They imagine that they can avert it by invoking the gods.
Alas! do they not see, that it is, in the name of these gods, that they
are ordered to present their throats to the sword of their merciless
tyrants, in whom they might find the obvious cause of the evils under
which they groan, and for whom they cease not to implore, in vain, the
assistance of heaven?

Ye credulous people! In your misfortunes, redouble your prayers,
offerings, and sacrifices; throng to your temples; fast in sack-cloth and
ashes; bathe yourselves in your own tears; and above all, completely ruin
yourselves to enrich your gods! You will only enrich their priests. The
gods of heaven will be propitious, only when the gods of the earth shall
acknowledge themselves, men, like you, and shall devote to your welfare
the attention you deserve.

148.

Negligent, ambitious, and perverse Princes are the real causes of public
misfortunes. Useless, unjust Wars depopulate the earth. Encroaching and
despotic Governments absorb the benefits of nature. The rapacity of Courts
discourages agriculture, extinguishes industry, produces want, pestilence
and misery. Heaven is neither cruel nor propitious to the prayers of the
people; it is their proud chiefs, who have almost always hearts of stone.

It is destructive to the morals of princes, to persuade them that they
have God alone to fear, when they injure their subjects, or neglect their
happiness. Sovereigns! It is not the gods, but your people, that you
offend, when you do evil. It is your people and yourselves that you
injure, when you govern unjustly.

In history, nothing is more common than to see Religious Tyrants; nothing
more rare than to