s in
Nismes, and in the places surrounding it. He initiated me into the
doctrines of his faith. The Protestants were laborious, quiet, and
benevolent citizens; but the hatred of the people and the fury of the
priests persecuted these unfortunate individuals even to the interior
of their homes. They lived in continual fear; yet this kept up the
ardour of piety more alive in the hearts of all. By compulsion, and
for the sake of appearance, we frequented the churches of the
Catholics, celebrated their holy days, and kept the images of their
saints in our rooms. But neither this compliance, nor the practical
piety of the persecuted, could appease the hatred of the persecutors.

Wavering between two different persuasions, to one of which I belonged
publicly, to the other secretly, a daily witness of the bitter quarrels
of both parties; and how much more pride, hatred, and selfishness, than
conviction and piety, flocked to the standards of the belligerent
churches, I became, without knowing it, a hypocrite and a disbeliever
to both. The grounds upon which each attacked the contested doctrinal
points of the other, were better weighed, more subtle and effective
than those upon which, the value of that, which was thus attacked, was
defended. This raised within me a distrust against all tenets; only
those that never had been attacked retained a lasting sway in my eyes.
Yet I concealed my inward thoughts from all, that I might not be an
abomination to all.

Thus my mind isolated itself early. God and His creation were, in my
leisure hours, the objects of my contemplation. I had a horror for the
frensy of men, with which they persecuted one another on account of a
changing opinion, a tract of country, or a title of princes. Early I
felt the hardness of my fate in living among beings who, in every
thing, judged differently from myself. I saw myself surrounded by
barbarians or half-savages, not yet much more humanised than those, at
whose sacrifices of men we are struck with horror. If the ancient
Celts, or the Brahmins, or the savages of the wilds of America butcher
human beings at the altars of their gods, were they in this more
monstrous than the modern Europeans, who, at the altars of their gods
(since opinions are the gods of mortals) butcher, in their pious zeal,
thousands of their brethren? I lamented over the atrocities of the age
I lived in, and saw no means that could remove the general ferocity of
nations.