“And how sad for mankind that the very interpreters of Heaven’s commandments--the theologians, I mean--are sometimes the most dangerous of all! professed messengers of the Divinity, yet men sometimes of obscure ideas and pernicious behavior, their soul blown out with mere darkness, full of gall and pride in proportion as it is empty of truths. Every thinking being who is not of their opinion is an atheist; and every king who does not favor them will be damned. Dangerous to the very throne, and yet intrinsically insignificant. “I respect metaphysical ideas. Rays of lightning they are in the midst of deep night. More, I think, is not to be hoped from metaphysics. It does not seem likely that the first principles of things will ever be known. The mice that nestle in some little holes of an immense building know not whether it is eternal, or who the architect, or why he built it. Such mice are we. And the divine architect has never, that I know of, told his secret to one of us.” Notwithstanding these sentiments, the king sent throughout Silesia a supply of sixty Protestant preachers, ordained especially for the work. Though Frederick himself did not wish to live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ, it is very evident that he did not fear the influence of that Gospel upon his Silesian subjects. Very wisely the Protestant preachers were directed carefully to avoid giving any offense to the Catholics. They were to preach in barns and town-halls in places where there was no Protestant church. The salary of each was one hundred and fifty dollars a year, probably with rations. They were all placed under the general superintendence of one of the army chaplains. Every day it became more clear that Maria Theresa was resolved not to part with one inch of her territory, and that the Austrian court was thoroughly roused in its determination to drive the intrusive Prussians out of Silesia. Though Frederick had no scruples of conscience to prevent him from seizing a portion of the domains of Maria Theresa, his astonishment and indignation were alike aroused by the rumor that England, Poland, and Russia were contemplating the dismemberment of his realms. An army of thirty-six thousand men, under the old Duke Leopold of Dessau,[51] was immediately dispatched by Frederick to Götten, on the frontiers of Hanover, to seize upon that Continental possession of the King of England upon the slightest indication of a hostile movement. George II. was greatly alarmed by this menace.