to usurp the present;
and while they speak to you of tolerance and charity, they burn, in the
name of God, the men who do not worship him in their manner."

"Lying priests," retorted the missionaries, "it is you who abuse the
credulity of ignorant nations to subjugate them. It is you who have made
of your ministry an art of cheating and imposture; you have converted
religion into a traffic of cupidity and avarice. You pretend to hold
communications with spirits, and they give for oracles nothing but
your wills. You feign to read the stars, and destiny decrees only your
desires. You cause idols to speak, and the gods are but the instruments
of your passions. You have invented sacrifices and libations, to
collect for your own profit the milk of flocks, and the flesh and fat
of victims; and under the cloak of piety you devour the offerings of the
gods, who cannot eat, and the substance of the people who are forced to
labor."

"And you," replied the Bramins, the Bonzes, the Chamans, "you sell to
the credulous living, your vain prayers for the souls of the dead. With
your indulgences and your absolutions you have usurped the power of God
himself; and making a traffic of his favors and pardons, you have put
heaven at auction; and by your system of expiations you have formed a
tariff of crimes, which has perverted all consciences."*

* As long as it shall be possible to obtain purification
from crimes and exemption from punishment by means of money
or other frivolous practices; as long as kings and great men
shall suppose that building temples or instituting
foundations, will absolve them from the guilt of oppression
and homicide; as long as individuals shall imagine that they
may rob and cheat, provided they observe fast during Lent,
go to confession, and receive extreme unction, it is
impossible there should exist in society any morality or
virtue; and it is from a deep conviction of truth, that a
modern philosopher has called the doctrine of expiations la
verola des societes.

"Add to this," said the Imans, "that these men have invented the
most insidious of all systems of wickedness,--the absurd and impious
obligation of recounting to them the most intimate secrets of actions
and of thoughts (confessions); so their insolent curiosity has carried
their inquisition even into the sanctuary of the marriage bed,* and the
inviolable recesses of the heart."