less ideas in the
Christian religion, which supposes its God as cruel to exact
sufferings from men as death from his only Son. If a God exempt from
all sin is himself also the sufferer for the sins of all, which is the
doctrine of those who maintain universal redemption, it is not
surprising to see men that are sinners making it a duty to assemble in
large meetings, and invent the means of rendering themselves
miserable. These gloomy notions have banished men to the desert. They
have fanatically renounced society and the pleasures of life, to be
buried alive, believing they would merit heaven if they afflicted
themselves with stripes and passed their existence in mummical
ceremonies, as injurious to their health as useless to their country.
And these are the false ideas by which the Divinity is transformed
into a tyrant as barbarous as insensible, who, agreeably to
_priestcraft_, has prescribed how both men and women might live in
ennui, penitence, sorrow, and tears; for the perfection of monastic
institutions consists in the ingenious art of self-torture. But
sacerdotal pride finds its account in these austerities. Rigid monks
glory in barbarous rules, the observance of which attracts the respect
of the credulous, who imagine that men who torment themselves are
indeed the favorites of heaven. But these monks, who follow these
austere rules, are fanatics, who sacrifice themselves to the pride of
the clergy who live in luxury and in wealth, although their duped,
imbecile brethren have been known to make it a point of honor to die
of famine.

How often, Madam, has your attention not been aroused when you
recalled to mind the fate of the poor religious men of the desert,
whom an unnecessary vow has condemned, as it were voluntarily, to a
life as rigorous as if spent in a prison! Seduced by the enthusiasm of
youth, or forced by the orders of inhuman parents, they have been
obliged to carry to the tomb the chains of their captivity. They have
been obliged to submit without appeal to a stern superior, who finds
no consolation in the discharge of his slavish task but in making his
empire more hard to those beneath him. You have seen unfortunate young
ladies obliged to renounce their rank in society, the innocent
pleasures of youth, the joys of their sex, to groan forever under a
rigorous despotism, to which indiscreet vows had bound them. All
monasteries present to us an odious group of fanatics, who have
separated themselve