own, and what wise men do not disdain these fables?
Their prophecies? Have we not shown their falsity? Their morals? Are
they not often infamous? The establishment of their religion? but did
not fanaticism begin, and has not intrigue visibly sustained this
edifice? The doctrine? but is it not the height of absurdity?

End Of The Abstract By Voltaire.

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

By translating into both the English and German languages Le Bon Sens,
containing the Last Will and Testament of the French curate JEAN
MESLIER, Miss Anna Knoop has performed a most useful and meritorious
task, and in issuing a new edition of this work, it is but justice to
her memory [Miss Knoop died Jan. 11, 1889.] to state that her
translation has received the endorsement of our most competent critics.

In a letter dated Newburyport, Mass., Sep. 23, 1878, Mr. James Parton,
the celebrated author, commends Miss Knoop for "translating Meslier's
book so well," and says that:

"This work of the honest pastor is the most curious and the most
powerful thing of the kind which the last century produced. . . . .
Paine and Voltaire had reserves, but Jean Meslier had none. He keeps
nothing back; and yet, after all, the wonder is not that there should
have been one priest who left that testimony at his death, but that all
priests do not. True, there is a great deal more to be said about
religion, which I believe to be an eternal necessity of human nature,
but no man has uttered the negative side of the matter with so much
candor and completeness as Jean Meslier."

The value of the testimony of a catholic priest, who in his last moments
recanted the errors of his faith and asked God's pardon for having
taught the catholic religion, was fully appreciated by Voltaire, who
highly commended this grand work of Meslier. He voluntarily made every
effort to increase its circulation, and even complained to D' Alembert
"that there were not as many copies in all Paris as he himself had
dispersed throughout the mountains of Switzerland." [See Letter 504,
Voltaire to D'Alembert] He earnestly entreats his associates to print
and distribute in Paris an edition of at least four or five thousand
copies, and at the suggestion of D'Alembert, made an abstract or
abridgment of The Testament "so small as to cost no more than five
pence, and thus to be fitted for the pocket and reading of every
workman." [Letter 146, from D'Alembert.]

The Abbe Barruel claims in his Memo