Even in its present form it is not difficult to see that the "Portrait of St. Paul" was written by one who had Swiss readers in view. The authors most frequently quoted are Ostervald, professor and pastor at Neufchatel, whose "Exercice du Ministère Sacré" was published in 1739, and Roques, formerly minister of the French congregation at Basle, whose "Pasteur Evangélique," published in 1723, was still a popular work. It was an advantage for Fletcher to be able to appeal to "such excellent and learned divines as Mons. Ostervald and Mons. Roques" in setting forth the character and calling of the Christian minister. The third and concluding portion of the work is "An Essay on the Connexion of Doctrines and Morality." It might almost be considered a separate and independent work. Its object is to show the insufficiency of natural religion and philosophy to produce true goodness. We are reminded on every page that it was written in the country of Rousseau's birth and of Voltaire's adoption, at a time when the wit of the one, the sentiment of the other, and the principles of both these philosophers and men of letters, were of paramount influence in Switzerland. Voltaire and Rousseau died in the year 1778, while Fletcher was residing at Nyon, and he had ample opportunity of observing the extent to which both clergy and laity had come under their spell. That influence was, in Fletcher's judgment, the cause of grievous injury to religion and morals. A loose, easy-going, yet confident deism seemed almost to have superseded Christianity. Even amongst the clergy the truth of revelation was denied, or its importance disparaged. The doctrines of revealed religion were ridiculed as mysterious and incredible, or rejected as having no practical bearing. The religion of nature had a showy and pretentious side for those who aspired to the dignity of philosophers, and was easily reconcilable with selfishness, vanity, and licentiousness alike in its more, and in its less, illustrious professors. Fletcher set himself to show the relation between principles and conduct, and particularly between the doctrines of the gospel and a pure morality, instituting comparisons between Christianity and the current deism in respect of their ethical force and direction. His references to Rousseau are frequent, as might be expected, and it was not difficult for so expert a controversialist to give a good account of the author of _Émile_. The "Confessions" of Rousseau were not published until 1782, four years after his death; but Fletcher lived in a country where Rousseau's history and character were well known. The most direct allusion, however, to his personal qualities occurs in the following passage, taken from the close of the treatise: