My friends, when we have preached toleration in prose and in verse, in
some of our pulpits, and in all our societies--when we have made these
true human voices resound in the organs of our churches--we have done
something for nature, we have reestablished humanity in its rights;
there will no longer be an ex-Jesuit, or an ex-Jansenist, who dares to
say, I am intolerant.
There will always be barbarians and cheats who will foment intolerance;
but they will not avow it--and that is something gained. Let us always
bear in mind, my friends, let us repeat--for we must repeat, for fear it
should be forgotten--the words of the bishop of Soissons, not Languet,
but Fitzjames-Stuart, in his mandate of 1757: "We ought to regard the
Turks as our brethren."
Let us consider, that throughout English America, which constitutes
nearly the fourth part of the known world, entire liberty of conscience
is established; and provided a man believes in a God, every religion is
well received: notwithstanding which, commerce flourishes and population
increases. Let us always reflect, that the first law of the Empire of
Russia, which is greater than the Roman Empire, is the toleration of
every sect.
The Turkish Empire, and the Persian, always allowed the same indulgence.
Mahomet II., when he took Constantinople, did not force the Greeks to
abandon their religion, although he looked on them as idolaters. Every
Greek father of a family got off for five or six crowns a year. Many
prebends and bishoprics were preserved for them; and even at this day
the Turkish sultan makes canons and bishops, without the pope having
ever made an imam or a mollah.
My friends, there are only some monks, and some Protestants as barbarous
as those monks, who are still intolerant. We have been so infected with
this furor, that in our voyages of long duration, we have carried it to
China, to Tonquin, and Japan. We have introduced the plague to those
beautiful climes. The most indulgent of mankind have been taught by us
to be the most inflexible. We said to them at the outset, in return for
their kind welcome--Know that we alone on the earth are in the right,
and that we ought to be masters everywhere. Then they drove us away
forever. This lesson, which has cost seas of blood, ought to correct us.
SECTION IV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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