ssion and
respect; who desires, without ceasing, that men may reiterate their
marks of respect for him; who wishes to be solicited; who bestows no
grace unless it be accorded to importunity for the purpose of making
it more valuable; and, above all, who allows himself to be appeased
and propitiated by gifts from which his ministers derive the greatest
advantage.

It is evident that it is upon these ideas borrowed from monarchical
courts here below that are founded all the practices, ceremonies, and
rites that we see established in all the religions of the earth. Each
sect has endeavored to make its God a monarch the most redoubtable,
the greatest, the most despotic, and the most selfish. The people
acquainted simply with human opinions, and full of debasement, have
adopted without examination the inventions which the Deity has shown
them as the fittest to obtain his favor and soften his wrath. The
priests fail not to adapt these practices, which they have invented,
to their own system of religion and personal interest; and the
ignorant and vulgar have allowed themselves to be blindly led by these
guides. Habit has familiarized them with things upon which they never
reason, and they make a duty of the routine which has been transmitted
to them from age to age, and from father to child.

The infant, as soon as it can be made to understand any thing, is
taught mechanically to join its little hands in prayer. His tongue is
forced to lisp a formula which it does not comprehend, addressed to a
God which its understanding can never conceive. In the arms of its
nurse it is carried into the temple or church, where its eyes are
habituated to contemplate spectacles, ceremonies, and pretended
mysteries, of which, even when it shall have arrived at mature age, it
will still understand nothing. If at this latter period any one should
ask the reason of his conduct, or desire to know why he made this
conduct a sacred and important duty, he could give no explanation,
except that he was instructed in his tender years to respectfully
observe certain usages, which he must regard as sacred, as they were
unintelligible to him. If an attempt was made to undeceive him in
regard to these habitual futilities, either he would not listen, or
he would be irritated against whoever denied the notions rooted in
his brain. Any man who wished to lead him to good sense, and who
reasoned against the habits he had contracted, would be regarded by
him as