The same Taste prevails in Religion, which does not consist in Practice, but in idle Speculations. Thus there are two hundred and thirty different Opinions about the Form or Figure of the Supream Being, and three hundred and ninety-six about the Nature and Quality of Souls. The _Martinians_ never resort to their Temples or Churches with the View of hearing any Thing useful, or of improving themselves in the Art of living and dying well, but only to observe with what Art and Dexterity the holy Orators acquit themselves; for the more obscure their Language is, the more they are admir’d, their Audience having very little Relish for what they understand. More Pains are taken about the Expression, than about the Matter, the Preachers affecting the smooth, round Period more than the Strength of Reason, and the Audience expecting to be amus’d with a sounding Pomp of Words without a Meaning. For this Reason I did not dare say any Thing concerning the Christian Religion, which consisting of naked, simple Truths, could never recommend itself to their _Goût_. Projectors are no where in so high Reputation as here. The more odd and impracticable the Scheme, the greater is the Inventor’s Glory. When I had accidentally been explaining to a certain Monkey the Nature of our terraqueous Globe, and had inform’d him that the Surface of it was inhabited, he presently conceiv’d a Project of digging through the Earth, and opening a Passage to the _Superterraneans_. This Device met with universal Applause, and a Society was thereupon instituted, and call’d THE SUPERTERRANEAN COMPANY, to which the Inhabitants flock’d in Shoals, and, according to the Language of those Times, bought in _Stocks_. However, as this Affair introduced a great deal of Confusion into the Kingdom, and ruin’d a Multitude of Families beyond Redemption, they found the Folly of the Scheme, and dropt it all at once. And though the Nation smarted so severely by it, yet the Projector not only escap’d with Impunity, but with almost general Praise, this People entertaining the highest Idea of his great Abilities.