is Providence, he bows before the horrid phantom of blind
chance or inexorable destiny. He is a man who obstinately refuses to
believe the most solidly-established facts in favor of religion, and
yet, with blind credulity, greedily swallows the most absurd falsehoods
uttered _against religion_. He is a man whose reason has fled, and whose
passions speak, object and decide in the name of reason.

The man without religion often pretends to be an infidel merely in order
to appear fashionable. He is usually conceited, obstinate, puffed up
with pride, a great talker, always shallow and fickle, skipping from one
subject to another without even thoroughly examining a single one. At
one moment he is a Deist, at another a Materialist, then he is a
Sceptic, and again an Atheist; always changing his views, but always a
slave of his passions, always an enemy of Christ.

The man without religion is a slave of the most shameful passions. He
tries to prove to the world that man is a brute, in order that he might
have the gratification of leading the life of a brute. I ask you, what
virtue can that man have who believes that whatever he desires is
lawful, who designates the most shameful crimes by the refined name of
innocent pleasures? What virtue can that man have who knows no other law
than his passions; who believes that God regards with equal eye truth
and falsehood, vice and virtue? He may indeed practise some natural
virtues, but these virtues are in general only _exterior_. They are
practised merely out of human respect; they do not come from the heart.
Now the seat of true virtue is in the heart, and not in the exterior. He
that acts merely to please man and not to please God, has no real
virtue.

The man without religion often praises all religions; he is a true
knave. He says: "If I were to choose my religion, I would become a
Catholic, for it is the most reasonable of all religions." But in his
heart he despises all religion. He is a man who scrapes together all the
wicked and absurd calumnies he can find against the Church. He falsely
accuses her of teaching monstrous doctrines which she has always
abhorred and condemned, and he displays his ingenuity by combating those
monstrous doctrines which he himself has invented, or copied from
authors as dishonest as himself. The infidel is a monster without faith,
without law, without religion, without God.

There are many who call themselves "free-thinkers," many who reject al