This philosophy, so purely human, which sees in the zeal of the Jesuits, and of many others, to go and preach religion at the extremities of the earth, nothing more than a means which they make use of for becoming of consequence and powerful, regards, as the most dexterous of their missionaries, those who know how best to arrive at that end. We must not then be astonished, if the society is a little surprised at the number of invectives and clamours, of which these fathers have been the object, on account of the Chinese superstitions which they permitted to their new converts. In that, as well as in the rest of their conduct, to the very time of their destruction, they have proved, we repeat it, that they knew mankind better than their adversaries did: they perceived that they were not to frighten or disgust their new converts, by prohibiting them a few national practices which were dear to them, and which they still have it in their power to interpret as they please. Pope Gregory, who is called the Great, and who was certainly a man of good sense, seems, if we may believe the Jesuits, to have set them, in that respect, the example: they have, at least, pretended to the authority of it. Augustine the monk, whom this pope had sent into England, to convert the people who were yet barbarous, consulted him on some remains of ceremonies, partly civilized, partly Pagan, which the new converts were unwilling to renounce: he demanded of Gregory, whether he might permit them those ceremonies. “There is no taking away,” replied that pope, “from rugged minds, all their habits at once: we ascend not a steep rock by leaping on it, but by clambering up step by step.” We see here the principle on which the Jesuits pretend to have conducted themselves in China. They were persuaded, that without this condescension, the religion which they preached would not have been even heard there. I have no doubt, but artful as they are, (or rather as they were) they have still further palliated and mitigated matters with respect to other points: and it cannot be denied, that they have done well, relatively to their own views; since, after all, it was neither God nor Christianity that they wanted to reign there; it was the society under those respectable names.