es the most
absolute despotism in the governors, imposes the most blind and passive
obedience in the people, that has stupefied the faculties of man, and
brutalized the nations.

"It is not so with our sublime and celestial morals; it was they which
raised the world from its primitive barbarity, from the senseless
and cruel superstitions of idolatry, from human sacrifices,* from the
shameful orgies of pagan mysteries; they it was that purified manners,
proscribed incest and adultery, polished savage nations, banished
slavery, and introduced new and unknown virtues, charity for men, their
equality in the sight of God, forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries,
the restraint of all the passions, the contempt of worldly greatness, a
life completely spiritual and completely holy!"

* Read the cold declaration of Eusebius (Proep. Evang. lib.
I, p. 11,), who pretends that, since the coming of Christ,
there have been neither wars, nor tyrants, nor cannibals,
nor sodomites, nor persons committing incest, nor savages
destroying their parents, etc. When we read these fathers
of the church we are astonished at their insincerity or
infatuation.

"We admire," said the Mussulmans, "the ease with which you reconcile
that evangelical meekness, of which you are so ostentatious, with
the injuries and outrages with which you are constantly galling your
neighbors. When you criminate so severely the great man whom we revere,
we might fairly retort on the conduct of him whom you adore; but we
scorn such advantages, and confining ourselves to the real object in
question, we maintain that the morals of your gospel have by no means
that perfection which you ascribe to them; it is not true that they
have introduced into the world new and unknown virtues: for example,
the equality of men in the sight of God,--that fraternity and that
benevolence which follow from it, were formal doctrines of the sect
of the Hermatics or Samaneans,* from whom you descend. As to the
forgiveness of injuries, the Pagans themselves had taught it; but in
the extent that you give it, far from being a virtue, it becomes an
immorality, a vice. Your so much boasted precept of turning one cheek
after the other, is not only contrary to every sentiment of man, but is
opposed to all ideas of justice. It emboldens the wicked by impunity,
debases the virtuous by servility, delivers up the world to despotism
and tyranny, and dissolves all s